Jeff White
2002-11-13, 09:19 AM
Two articles from the Washington Times on possible terrorist connections. If this is true, how should we deal with it?
Washington Times
November 13, 2002
Pg. 10
Accused Snipers May Be Followers
By Jerry Seper and Steve Miller, The Washington Times
Federal authorities are investigating whether accused snipers John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo had ties to a growing sect of militant American Muslims committed to waging holy war against the United States.
Law-enforcement authorities yesterday said investigators want to know whether the suspects — now awaiting separate murder trials in Virginia — were involved with Jamaat al-Fuqra, a militant Muslim group with documented ties to international terrorism that has been linked to 13 slayings and 17 firebombings in the United States and Canada.
The al-Fuqra network, through an offshoot group known as the Muslims of America, has established a patchwork of more than two dozen communes from New York to California, including a sizable retreat in Red House, Va., 30 miles south of Lynchburg, where as many as 200 people live in trailers in a guarded community.
FBI agents assigned to the sniper investigation task force were in Red House last week, seeking information on whether Mr. Muhammad and Mr. Malvo had ties to that community or whether they had used the site as a hide-out during a 23-day killing spree in Virginia, Maryland and the District that left 10 persons dead and three others wounded.
Charlotte County Sheriff Thomas D. Jones, whose jurisdiction includes Red House, said that while FBI agents did not establish any specific link with the southern Virginia commune, agents told him "there had been a connection at a similar community in Georgia."
Sheriff Jones did not elaborate and federal authorities declined yesterday to comment on the ongoing sniper investigation.
Mr. Muhammad, 41, and Mr. Malvo, 17, were arrested Oct. 24 at a Maryland highway rest stop and initially held on federal warrants. Mr. Muhammad has since been moved to Prince William County and Mr. Malvo to Fairfax County, where they face capital murder charges.
The earliest known al-Fuqra attack occured in 1983 in Portland, Ore., when Stephen Paster, an al-Fuqra leader, was accused of setting off a pipe bomb at a Portland hotel. He served four years of a 20-year sentence and while suspected in two other bombings in Seattle in 1984, was never charged in those cases.
Mr. Muhammad converted to Islam in 1984 and, as a former U.S. soldier, was stationed at Fort Lewis near Tacoma, Wash., at the time of the initial al-Fuqra attacks. Al-Fuqra also was named in the August 1984 slayings of three India natives in Tacoma and in a series of fire bombings in Seattle.
One law-enforcement official noted yesterday that the sniper killings began Oct. 2 — the anniversary of the 1995 conviction of World Trade Center bombing ringleader Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman and others, including members of al-Fuqra.
"There are a series of coincidences here involving Mr. Muhammad and al-Fuqra that have to be followed," said the official. "Even if the investigation leads nowhere, it would be negligent not to pursue every angle."
As many as 3,000 al-Fuqra members are believed to live in the Muslim communes across the country, some of which have been identified by authorities as having shooting ranges. The State Department said al-Fuqra, or the "the impoverished," seeks to purify Islam through violence.
Many of the group's members are recruited out of prison, authorities said, adding that secrecy is the hallmark of the sect and that members are trained, among other things, in the use of aliases.
"The groups doing the recruiting appeal to the recruit's sense of disenfranchisement," said Susan Fenger, a former Colorado state investigator who helped prosecute several al-Fuqra members in the early 1990s.
Four members of the Red House commune have been arrested on weapons charges in the past two years, including two after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed more than 3,000 people.
Al-Fuqra communes have been established to follow the teachings of Sheik Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, a Pakistani cleric who founded the tax-exempt Muslims of America sect in 1980. Sheik Gilani left the United States for Lahore, Pakistan, in 1993, shortly after the first attack by Muslim terrorists on the World Trade Center.
The organization also is suspected of having ties to Richard C. Reid, the British man accused of trying to use explosives in his shoes to blow up a Paris-to-Miami jetliner Dec. 22. Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was on the way to meet Sheik Gilani in Pakistan when he was kidnapped and later killed. Mr. Pearl was investigating accusations that Reid was one of Sheik Gilani's followers. Sheik Gilani was not charged in the Pearl death.
Washington Times
November 13, 2002
Pg. 10
Justice, CORE To Discuss Terrorists' Wooing Of Blacks
By Steve Miller, The Washington Times
The Department of Justice met yesterday with a New York civil rights group to discuss the recruitment of black American Muslims by terrorist organizations.
Roy Innis, chairman of the conservative Congress of Racial Equality, told officials he fears an increasing alliance between Middle East-based terrorists and domestic black Islamists.
The meeting between Mr. Innis and Justice Department officials marked the first time since September 11 that federal law enforcement agents have publicly confronted concerns about domestic black Muslims as a national security issue.
"There has been a fear because of racial and religious reasons," Mr. Innis said. "But [many federal officials] have been in denial but this has become a very real danger. And there are signs all over the place.
"If we want to ignore this danger then we are not doing a good job to keep this country safe," said Mr. Innis, who added that yesterday's meeting was "informal" and said he hoped it was a prelude to a conference with Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Mr. Innis said that Justice Department officials at the meeting expressed concerned about the "balance of civil liberties and a national security crisis."
"We can go to the Bureau of Prisons, for example, and ask for a review of the various ministers," Mr. Innis said. "This is too important an issue for these kinds of things to not be under review."
Justice Department officials did not return calls yesterday.
Mr. Innis' tax-exempt group — which reported $1.2 million in revenue in 1999, the last tax records available — will begin a campaign to counter the Islamic recruitment efforts that are prominent in the nation's prisons and college campuses.
The effort will look at groups like the National Islamic Prison Foundation, which coordinates a campaign to convert inmates to Islam. Foundation officials claim an average of 135,000 such conversions per year.
The recent arrest of sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad, a member of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, and the arrest of several black Muslims in Portland, Ore., have focused attention on black American Muslim converts in the past month.
Since the September 11 attacks, a number of black Muslims have been among those arrested in terrorist-related sweeps by federal and local law enforcement.
Federal investigators also continue to survey small settlements of black Muslims involved with Jamaat al-Fuqra, a group founded in the early 1980s by Sheik Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, a Pakistani with numerous terrorist ties.
In addition, colleges and prisons have been used as recruiting grounds for Islam, places where people who are searching for answers take solace in a culture that appears ready to embrace them.
"There have been many connections between the Saudis and black U.S. Muslims," said Earle W. Waugh, a professor of religion at the University of Alberta in Canada. "I think it is a connection that has encouraged the move of African-American Muslim groups toward a more conservative version of what Islam is."
One black Muslim leader yesterday objected to the idea of Mr. Innis' tax-exempt organization investigating Islamic groups on behalf of the Justice Department.
"I think the government needs to do whatever it needs to do within the confines of the law and the Constitution to safeguard the nation," said Imam Johari, who serves as the Muslim chaplain at Howard University.
"As Americans we should all be treated equally, if there are 'valid' leads into the African-American or other communities, they should follow them, but they have to hold onto the standards of civil rights and liberty for all. History has shown that this is not always what they adhere to, which is the problem; the problem is not who the Justice Department listens to, it's the rush to judgment that's the problem."
Washington Times
November 13, 2002
Pg. 10
Accused Snipers May Be Followers
By Jerry Seper and Steve Miller, The Washington Times
Federal authorities are investigating whether accused snipers John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo had ties to a growing sect of militant American Muslims committed to waging holy war against the United States.
Law-enforcement authorities yesterday said investigators want to know whether the suspects — now awaiting separate murder trials in Virginia — were involved with Jamaat al-Fuqra, a militant Muslim group with documented ties to international terrorism that has been linked to 13 slayings and 17 firebombings in the United States and Canada.
The al-Fuqra network, through an offshoot group known as the Muslims of America, has established a patchwork of more than two dozen communes from New York to California, including a sizable retreat in Red House, Va., 30 miles south of Lynchburg, where as many as 200 people live in trailers in a guarded community.
FBI agents assigned to the sniper investigation task force were in Red House last week, seeking information on whether Mr. Muhammad and Mr. Malvo had ties to that community or whether they had used the site as a hide-out during a 23-day killing spree in Virginia, Maryland and the District that left 10 persons dead and three others wounded.
Charlotte County Sheriff Thomas D. Jones, whose jurisdiction includes Red House, said that while FBI agents did not establish any specific link with the southern Virginia commune, agents told him "there had been a connection at a similar community in Georgia."
Sheriff Jones did not elaborate and federal authorities declined yesterday to comment on the ongoing sniper investigation.
Mr. Muhammad, 41, and Mr. Malvo, 17, were arrested Oct. 24 at a Maryland highway rest stop and initially held on federal warrants. Mr. Muhammad has since been moved to Prince William County and Mr. Malvo to Fairfax County, where they face capital murder charges.
The earliest known al-Fuqra attack occured in 1983 in Portland, Ore., when Stephen Paster, an al-Fuqra leader, was accused of setting off a pipe bomb at a Portland hotel. He served four years of a 20-year sentence and while suspected in two other bombings in Seattle in 1984, was never charged in those cases.
Mr. Muhammad converted to Islam in 1984 and, as a former U.S. soldier, was stationed at Fort Lewis near Tacoma, Wash., at the time of the initial al-Fuqra attacks. Al-Fuqra also was named in the August 1984 slayings of three India natives in Tacoma and in a series of fire bombings in Seattle.
One law-enforcement official noted yesterday that the sniper killings began Oct. 2 — the anniversary of the 1995 conviction of World Trade Center bombing ringleader Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman and others, including members of al-Fuqra.
"There are a series of coincidences here involving Mr. Muhammad and al-Fuqra that have to be followed," said the official. "Even if the investigation leads nowhere, it would be negligent not to pursue every angle."
As many as 3,000 al-Fuqra members are believed to live in the Muslim communes across the country, some of which have been identified by authorities as having shooting ranges. The State Department said al-Fuqra, or the "the impoverished," seeks to purify Islam through violence.
Many of the group's members are recruited out of prison, authorities said, adding that secrecy is the hallmark of the sect and that members are trained, among other things, in the use of aliases.
"The groups doing the recruiting appeal to the recruit's sense of disenfranchisement," said Susan Fenger, a former Colorado state investigator who helped prosecute several al-Fuqra members in the early 1990s.
Four members of the Red House commune have been arrested on weapons charges in the past two years, including two after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed more than 3,000 people.
Al-Fuqra communes have been established to follow the teachings of Sheik Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, a Pakistani cleric who founded the tax-exempt Muslims of America sect in 1980. Sheik Gilani left the United States for Lahore, Pakistan, in 1993, shortly after the first attack by Muslim terrorists on the World Trade Center.
The organization also is suspected of having ties to Richard C. Reid, the British man accused of trying to use explosives in his shoes to blow up a Paris-to-Miami jetliner Dec. 22. Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was on the way to meet Sheik Gilani in Pakistan when he was kidnapped and later killed. Mr. Pearl was investigating accusations that Reid was one of Sheik Gilani's followers. Sheik Gilani was not charged in the Pearl death.
Washington Times
November 13, 2002
Pg. 10
Justice, CORE To Discuss Terrorists' Wooing Of Blacks
By Steve Miller, The Washington Times
The Department of Justice met yesterday with a New York civil rights group to discuss the recruitment of black American Muslims by terrorist organizations.
Roy Innis, chairman of the conservative Congress of Racial Equality, told officials he fears an increasing alliance between Middle East-based terrorists and domestic black Islamists.
The meeting between Mr. Innis and Justice Department officials marked the first time since September 11 that federal law enforcement agents have publicly confronted concerns about domestic black Muslims as a national security issue.
"There has been a fear because of racial and religious reasons," Mr. Innis said. "But [many federal officials] have been in denial but this has become a very real danger. And there are signs all over the place.
"If we want to ignore this danger then we are not doing a good job to keep this country safe," said Mr. Innis, who added that yesterday's meeting was "informal" and said he hoped it was a prelude to a conference with Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Mr. Innis said that Justice Department officials at the meeting expressed concerned about the "balance of civil liberties and a national security crisis."
"We can go to the Bureau of Prisons, for example, and ask for a review of the various ministers," Mr. Innis said. "This is too important an issue for these kinds of things to not be under review."
Justice Department officials did not return calls yesterday.
Mr. Innis' tax-exempt group — which reported $1.2 million in revenue in 1999, the last tax records available — will begin a campaign to counter the Islamic recruitment efforts that are prominent in the nation's prisons and college campuses.
The effort will look at groups like the National Islamic Prison Foundation, which coordinates a campaign to convert inmates to Islam. Foundation officials claim an average of 135,000 such conversions per year.
The recent arrest of sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad, a member of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, and the arrest of several black Muslims in Portland, Ore., have focused attention on black American Muslim converts in the past month.
Since the September 11 attacks, a number of black Muslims have been among those arrested in terrorist-related sweeps by federal and local law enforcement.
Federal investigators also continue to survey small settlements of black Muslims involved with Jamaat al-Fuqra, a group founded in the early 1980s by Sheik Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, a Pakistani with numerous terrorist ties.
In addition, colleges and prisons have been used as recruiting grounds for Islam, places where people who are searching for answers take solace in a culture that appears ready to embrace them.
"There have been many connections between the Saudis and black U.S. Muslims," said Earle W. Waugh, a professor of religion at the University of Alberta in Canada. "I think it is a connection that has encouraged the move of African-American Muslim groups toward a more conservative version of what Islam is."
One black Muslim leader yesterday objected to the idea of Mr. Innis' tax-exempt organization investigating Islamic groups on behalf of the Justice Department.
"I think the government needs to do whatever it needs to do within the confines of the law and the Constitution to safeguard the nation," said Imam Johari, who serves as the Muslim chaplain at Howard University.
"As Americans we should all be treated equally, if there are 'valid' leads into the African-American or other communities, they should follow them, but they have to hold onto the standards of civil rights and liberty for all. History has shown that this is not always what they adhere to, which is the problem; the problem is not who the Justice Department listens to, it's the rush to judgment that's the problem."