The Jihadist Training Camp in Your Back Yard

It seems that for some time now, a group out of Pakistan has become settled into the fabric of the United States and only now am I catching on to this story. Of course now with the events surrounding Faisal Shahzad’s attempt at terror on NYC, the Pakistani angle of GWOT should become more prevalent on the minds of many.

It is yet to be determined just what group may have influenced and perhaps supported Faisal, but, this group kind of would be on my mind were I looking at this picture from a LEO perspective. If not a part in this particular attempt, this group uses some of the same bomb making techniques that Faisal attempted to use as well as more technical means such as mercury switches and C4 (mercury switches siezed in Colorado from one of their sites)

Group name: Jamaat Ul-Fuqra or Ja’maat Al-Fuqra

Based out of: Pakistan, Lahore with sattelite bases in the US

US Name for organization: Muslims of the Americas (MOA) Site: http://www.iqou-moa.org/

Main HQ in the US: http://www.islamberg.org/

I happened across this group after locating a copy of “homegrown jihad” off the internet and it is the product of a Christian group with a bent for going after these guys. Now, I am no Christian, nor am I going to denegrate them for their beliefs, but, I have to take some of what I saw in the film with some skepticism just from the nature of the source. However, when doing the actual looking through the internet, there was a plethora of information governmental and otherwise that point to this group being a terrorist recruitment and action sect. Just the video alone “Soldiers of Allah” is enough to make me see that the Sheikh is training his followers for violent jihad.

In the video provided he speaks about arming the Muslims to become warriors for Allah and is later seen firing the usual AK-47 interspersed with jihadi training sessions on martial arts and bomb making/explosives ordinance training. If this is not a damming piece of contradictory evidence to “we’re just a poor peaceful Muslim group” then I just don’t know what is.

The leader of the MOA is Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani who was a central figure in the murder of Daniel Pearl who was actually on his way to interview the sheikh on his connections to Richard Reid (the shoe bomber) when he was abducted and eventually beheaded by Khalid sheikh Mohammed according to his own testimony at Guantanamo Bay in 2007.

Pertinent Data:

The JF, in its early phase, sought to counter what is perceived as excessive Western influence on Islam. It also concluded that violence was a significant aspect in its quest to purify Islam. In its ideological moorings, the Fuqra regards as enemies of Islam all those who do not follow the tenets of Islam as laid out in the Koran, including those Muslims who they consider as heretics as well as non-Muslims. One of Gilani’s works published by the Quranic Open University in the US and seized in a 1991-investigation instructed his cadres that their foremost duty was to wageJehad against the ‘oppressors of Muslims’. Members of the group are described as Islamist extremists with much hatred toward their ‘enemies’.

The JF is loosely structured with certain elements working openly through social service organisations to recruit members, raise money, organise activities and carry out propaganda. Individuals selected to live on JF premises agree to abide by the law and discipline of the Jamaat ul-Fuqra. Investigations by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office in the 1980s indicated that the JF was composed of approximately 30 different ‘Jamaats’ or communities, more or less mobile in nature. Most of these ‘Jamaats’ are reportedly existent even today along with what investigators discerned to be several covert paramilitary training compounds, one of which had been located in a mountainous area near Buena Vista, Colorado prior to the Colorado prosecutions in the mid-1990s.

Within 10 years of its formation, Fuqra’s communes in the US attracted many Muslim converts-including some of those recruited in prisons. The JF is said to comprise of some 1,000 to 3,000 members in the US. Secrecy is the hallmark of the outfit and cadres are reportedly well versed in the use of aliases. The Fuqra’s structure is well concealed behind front outfits and consists of a network of safe houses and cells. Furthermore, the JF founder as well as cadres consistently maintain that it does not exist. JF members occasionally travel abroad for ‘paramilitary and survivalist training’ under Gilani’s supervision.

Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, who also calls himself the sixth Sultan Ul Faqr, is the chief of JF.

Jamaat ul-Fuqra is headquartered in Hancock, New York.

Above cited data from satp.org

Muslims of the Americas
Village of Islamberg
2732 Roods Creek Rd. B29
Hancock, NY 13783

Although Gilani, the reclusive chief of Fuqra resides in Lahore, Pakistan, most JF cells are located in North America. Fuqra members have purchased isolated rural properties in North America to live as a community, practice their faith, and insulate themselves from Western culture. The group has set up and funded rural communes that the US authorities allege are linked to murder, bombings and other felonies throughout the US and Canada. Currently, there are half a dozen Fuqra residential compounds in rural hamlets across the US sheltering hundreds of cadres, some of who have reportedly trained in the use of weapons and explosives in Pakistan.

After some Googling, I came up with their site as well as email addresses and phone numbers for the main site in NY

Media/Public Affairs Liason – Muhammad Hasib Haqq

moa_prdept@yahoo.com / hasib786@juno.com

Social Services – Shareen Begum

moa_info@yahoo.com

Islamberg General Information ( hours 7-3pm ) Note: no personal information will be given

607-467-1982

moa_info@yahoo.com

Webmaster – islambergny786@yahoo.com

I have done some poking around and thus far the only connections that the email addresses have is to an Angelfire site for the Bengali Youth Foundation Otherwise they have little in the way of links offsite from theirs. If I were the feds though, I would be watching all those accounts online for emails incoming and outgoing… But, that’s me.

Take a look at the video and see what you think, then do some research yourselves. It seems that even as of 2009 the Fuqra were developing and releasing more training videos for jihad. Just how is it we don’t see them in the news more? These guys have basically taken the militia model and started their own little “Waco” style compounds out in the middle of nowhere and have been building their weapons base as well as recruiting perhaps…

More when I get the data.

CoB

And the Shahzad-A-Palooza Begins…. Meanwhile FOX News Claims Online Jihad Ties…

Full page from majahden archived HERE

Post the failed bomb attempt and all the ravening coverage by the news media, the jihadi’s have now latched on to Mr. Shahzad as their new zeitgeist of terror… Let the nasheeds begin to flow! Heh. On the site mirrored above you can see these photoshopped pictures and more concerning their new hero. I find it rather interesting how they have him on billboards in Times Square looking down on the place, especially since he failed in his mission so miserably. These guys just don’t seem to get it do they?

Pssst, jihad johnny, he failed mmmkay? If anything, he has given us and IS giving us good intel in interrogation the last time I heard. So, you guys should maybe re-think your idols cuz this guy was the suck. In fact, he didn’t have his heart in it I think. Otherwise he would have done a better job at the whole thing no? Nor would he have sung like a songbird when he was picked up and waived his rights to remain silent.

Meanwhile back at the FOX ranch…

This report came out claiming that a user with the name “Faisal Shahzad” had been posting for a couple years on Salafist websites with his real name. Interestingly, the sites that they do not actually reference in the piece, are Islamic sites that deal with political thought and Islam, not the actual sites such as the one mirrored above that actually are full out jihadist web boards that these characters frequent. So, if you consider political discourse and talk of Jihad (which does not always mean what you think it means.. Jihad literally means struggle, and more to the point, often times means personal internal struggle with religious meanings) actual war against the US, you are making a kind of leap there Mr. Fox reporter.

Anyway, in looking through the sites I have been mapping, I have yet to locate one Faisal Shahzad as an account. So, if this guy was hardcore, and not a complete idiot, then he was using another name/ID online to chat on these sites. So, I think that the Fox reporting is a little falacious, but, I have yet to really see these postings by Faisal Shahzad online in these forums they speak of. I guess though, that the authorities are looking into that aspect and time will tell.

As well, the reports from Bridgeport and Shelton keep coming in portraying this guy anywhere from an awkward foreigner who became a citizen to someone who has the proclivities of a vampire (he said he hated the sun and used to run around at night in the neighborhood)… Ok… Well, maybe he was a bit strange or perhaps unstable. I have yet to see anything out of University of Bridgeport (psst it’s owned by the Moonies btw!) as to his time there so, maybe he wasn’t always so whacky. Perhaps he just got more and more disenfranchised as his life came apart here in the states? After all, my supposition still fits in my mind that he just became disillusioned here with the foreclosure and all.

In any case, that is no excuse, but may be more of an explanation as to the how and why he did this thing… And perhaps did it so poorly. We will see.

More when I have it.

CoB