-Caveat Lector-
MONDAY NOVEMBER 11 2002
Sniper link to al-Fuqra probed
Investigators suspect connection with radical
Islamist organization
Posted: November 11, 2002 1:00 a.m. Eastern
Sniper suspect John Muhammad fits the profile of a
disaffected outcast who becomes increasingly
radicalized under the influence of Islamism, say
terrorism analysts and investigators, who suspect he is
connected with the radical Islamist group, al-Fuqra.
According to Christian M. Weber, contributing editor for
Soldiers for the Truth, an organization headed by Col.
David Hackworth, Muhammad seems to follow the model
of John Walker Lindh, Richard Reid and Jose Padilla –
men exposed to Islamism who become disenchanted
with the movement's pace and progress and who take
the road to jihad.
"As one traces John Muhammad's life from his
conversion to Islam in 1985, to his joining of the
moderately militant Nation of Islam, to his deadly
shooting spree in October 2002, his steady
radicalization becomes readily apparent," writes Weber.
"Terrorist profiling dictates that his departure from the
Nation of Islam in 1999 would have been followed by his
affiliation with an organization more actively militant. It
also suggests that initial news reports citing U.S.
officials who said there was no evidence of any
connection between Muhammad and identified terrorist
organizations may have been premature."
Weber points out that Muhammad acquired the 1990
Chevy Caprice that he would modify into his killing
platform on the one-year anniversary of the terrorist
attacks. He had also expressed sympathy with Sept. 11
terrorists.
Weber had previously pointed to Oct. 2 – the day the
snipers began their Maryland rampage – as a significant
date for terrorist threats.
"Nor does it seem random chance that his spree started
on Oct. 2, the anniversary of the conviction of World
Trade Center bombing ringleader Sheikh Omar Abdul
Rahman in 1995," Weber writes. "It appears likely that
after his separation from the Nation of Islam, which
occurred on less than good terms, Muhammad
gravitated to an organization at odds with the Nation of
Islam and aligned with the Wahhabist sect of Islam
associated with al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, and
Sheikh Rahman. In America today, one organization fits
that bill – al-Fuqra."
Al-Fuqra was founded by Kashmiri Sheikh Mubarak Ali
Gilani. He began preaching at a Muslim mosque in
Brooklyn seeking recruits for the Afghan Jihad. He
primarily targeted black American converts from the
inner city and those with criminal backgrounds, a
segment of the population that the cleric apparently saw
as prime for melding militant Islam with a deep-seated
resentment and disillusionment with Western society.
"The resulting organization, al-Fuqra (the impoverished),
was formed with a goal of purifying Islam through
violence," explains Weber. Gilani is the man Wall Street
Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was to meet when he was
abducted last Jan. 23 and murdered. He has a long
history of involvement with terrorism.
"The upstate New York town of Hancock serves as the
American headquarters for al-Fuqra, with at least six
major rural communities, jamaats, of 200 to 300
members located in Red House, Va., Tulare County,
Calif., Commerce, Ga., York, S.C., Dover, Tenn., and
Combermere, Canada," he writes. "Total membership in
al-Fuqra is believed to be between one and three
thousand, with smaller jamaats being reported in over
25 locations throughout the United States, Canada, and
the Caribbean. The communities themselves are
primarily walled or fenced-in gatherings of trailers or
mobile homes. At least three of the compounds are
known to have firing ranges, and the compound in the
Sierra Nevada Mountains of California has a fully
functional airfield.
Surveillance reports of the compounds note that the
residents remain in a fluid state and are continuously on
the move. For the past several years, law enforcement
authorities observing the Red House, Va., compound
have voiced concern that this pattern may be designed
to create a series of safe houses in the rural areas of
southern Virginia.
According to Weber, al-Fuqra – which boasts distinct
ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida – owns two private
security companies in Brooklyn that not only provide
armed protection for the jamaats, but also compete for
government and private security contracts. Between
1980 and 1990, al-Fuqra members have been either
convicted or suspected in 13 assassinations and 17
firebombings, he says.
Susan Fenger, former chief criminal investigator for the
state of Colorado, has looked into Muslim groups with
terrorist ties in the U.S.
"There was a large Fuqra group here in Colorado that
was ripping off worker's comp money and using that to
support their terrorist activities," said Fenger in a recent
interview with John Gibson on the Fox News Channel.
"Their terrorist activities involved targeting a number of
individuals, and including the Hare Krishna temple here
in Denver and an imam down in Tucson, Arizona."
"Their basis, their philosophy, is to purify or cleanse
Islam," said Fenger. "And speaking in the traditional
fundamentalist viewpoint of Islam. And to do so through
any means of force and violence. That's their creed."
Referring to Sheik Jalani, the head of the al-Fuqra,
Fenger said the leader exerts "total influence" over his
followers, so much so that "many of the adherents to
Fuqra even look at him in a more of a religious sense as
able to move from place to place without – in a magical
way."
"Without having to get on a plane?" asked Gibson.
"That's right."
And does the group actually engage in terrorist acts?
"There have been throughout the 1980s and '90s
terrorist activities that this group was involved in," said
Fenger. "However, they were carried out in a covert
manner. What this group does is targets various
individuals and entities and plans to carry out its terrorist
acts in a very covert manner."
During an Oct. 28 CNN broadcast, anchor Arthel Neville
asked that network's security analyst Kelly McCann
about the sniper/al-Fuqra connection:
"Authorities are saying that Muhammad may have been,
and Malvo may have been, associated with the Muslim
group Jamad Al-Fuqra, and the State Department lists
this group as a terrorist group operating out of Pakistan
and North America. What do you know about this
group?"
McCann: "It's been in operation since about the 1980s.
It's centered in Lahore, Pakistan, and Sheik Gilani is the
man who is responsible for starting it. Basically, the
name says it all. It's also known by the name Jihad
Council for North America. It's active in the Caribbean,
and in North America, and in Pakistan, and if you see
the Caribbean link, Richard Reid obviously, Malvo, and
now Muhammad, it's interesting – there's just a
tremendous amount of coincidence and overlap that
needs to be investigated."
"In any investigation the acceleration point is at the
apprehension," McCann added. "When you apprehend
somebody you should accelerate forward in order to run
down leads that may run on, especially when you are
doing counter-terror, into other areas, and I think that to
be fair, no one's making any statements saying that
there is a link. I think everyone is just saying that there
are so many coincidences that we would be foolish not
to run them into ground."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID
=29608
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