The Buffalo Police Department learned about a newly-established MOA website in 2002.[i] A search of that website shows that its section about Kashmir twice linked to the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front in 200; once directly and once as a recommended news source. It was the only militant group in Pakistan that MOA directed its readers towards.

The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front is not designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department.

[i] The discovery was mentioned in a Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation into MOA in 2003-2004.

Fuqra/MOA is believed to have collaborated with the El-Rukn black Muslim gang based in Chicago and to have recruited from its ranks.

Lawrence Martines, the former chief of the Nevada department of homeland security, writes:

“As the JAF grew in numbers, it is believed that they established a working relationship with the El Rukn, a large and violent Chicago black Muslim gang. The El Rukn in 1987, according to intelligence sources, were alleged to have received $2.5 million from Libya, the money transaction taking place in Nicaragua, to act as a fighting force on call to serve the Libyan government against the USA. Currently five leaders of El Rukn are still serving lengthy federal terms for ‘Conspiracy to Commit Terrorist Acts.’ It is believed that JAF recruited heavily from those now leaderless ER members seeking a safe sanctuary or support.”[1]

The Libyan government also backed Jamaat al-Muslimeen, a militant group in Trinidad linked to Fuqra/MOA, around this time.

[1] Martines, Lawrence J. (2010). Jam’at Al-Fuqra, a.k.a. Society of the Impoverished. Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security International. Vo. 8, No. 3.

A former senior U.S. law enforcement official directly involved in investigating Fuqra told Ryan Mauro that Sheikh Gilani is linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET).

LET has been designated by the U.S. State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization since 2001. It is linked to Jaish-e-Mohammed, Al-Qaeda and the Indian Mujahideen.  It is primarily focused on Kashmir and targets India.[i]

[i] “Country Reports on Terrorism 2015.” (2015). U.S. State Department Bureau of Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism. http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2015/257523.htm

Kashmir Freedom Front

A second letter was sent to President Bush two months later. It reiterated that jihad against India was mandatory, comparing India’s alleged crimes in Kashmir to those committed by Nazi Germany. It stated that the MOA endorses “all efforts” to intervene in Kashmir and that Sheikh Gilani had met with the Kashmir Freedom Front. The letter asked the U.S. government to not interfere from stopping Muslim-American recruits from joining the jihad, claiming that the U.S. stopped its recruits from entering Afghanistan in 1982.

Little information is available about the Kashmir Freedom Front in 1990. However, a coalition of over 30 pro-Pakistan militant groups formed in 1993 and was named the All Kashmir Freedom Front. It was essentially controlled by Hizbul Mujahideen.[i]

[i] Phillips, David L. (2011). From Bullets to Ballots: Violent Muslim Movements in Transition. Transaction Publishers.

Sheikh Gilani is said to be close to the leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed, Maulana Masood Azhar.[i] Azhar used to lead Harakat ul-Ansar. He was released by India after terrorists hijacked an airliner in 1999 and demanded his release.

JEM primarily targets India but members have been accused of attacking Christians in Pakistan and having involvement in plots to assassinate Pakistani President Musharaff.

JEM has been listed by the U.S. State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization since 2001. The group is linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

[i] Wilson, John. (2007). The General and Jihad. Pentagon Press.

Sheikh Gilani’s texts say that he met with Hezb-i-Islami and the Islamic Revolution of Afghanistan in 1979 to try to unify their ranks against the Soviet Union. Gilani said he offered his services to any Islamic group taking part in the jihad.

The group disbanded in the 1990s and most members joined the Taliban.[i]

[i] Harakat Muqatila-e-Islami Afghanistan. Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium. http://www.trackingterrorism.org/group/harakat-muqatila-e-islami-afghanistan-hmia

Sheikh Gilani’s texts say that he met with Hezb-i-Islami and the Islamic Revolution of Afghanistan in 1979 to try to unify their ranks against the Soviet Union. Gilani said he offered his services to any Islamic group taking part in the jihad.

Gilani’s recruits reportedly fought in Afghanistan as members of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i-Islami. Two dozen African-American recruits were seen amongst the mujahideen in Afghanistan in 1985.[i]

Reported Fuqra/MOA member Rodney Hampton-El was injured fighting in Afghanistan as a member of Hezb-i-Islami. He was later convicted for his involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a foiled wave of bombings in New York City in 1995.

A 1993 State Department intelligence document said that Sheikh Gilani is linked to a “mujahidin hub” that includes multiple allied Islamist terrorist groups. It reads:

 “A close working relationship reportedly exists among [Gulbuddin] Hekmatyar, Egyptian Islamic Gama’at spiritual leader Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, Yemeni Islamic Jihad leader Sheikh Zindani and Sudanese National Islamic Front (NIF) leader Hassan al-Turabi. Sheikh Jilani, the leader of the Jama’at al-Fuqra based in Lahore, is also believed to have some ties to the mujahidin network. This circle of mutual admiration nurtures the network of safe havens, bases and logistical support.”

The memo said that Osama Bin Laden is financially and ideologically tied to Hekmatyar.[ii]

In 1994, MOA published that book that included statements supportive of Hezb-i-Islami and condemned the “barrage of Zionist lies” accusing the group of terrorism.[iii]

Hekmatyar was designated as a “global terrorist” by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2003. The group is linked to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and is sponsored by the Iranian regime.

[i] Martines, Lawrence J. (2010). Jam’at Al-Fuqra, a.k.a. Society of the Impoverished. Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security International. Vo. 8, No. 3.

[ii] “The Wandering Mujahidin: Armed and Dangerous.” (1993). State Department Intelligence and Research Bureau.

[iii] Target Islam: Exposing the Malicious Conspiracy of the Zionists Against the World of Islam and Prominent Muslim Leaders. (1994). Quranic Open University and Pakistan Foundation for Strategic Studies.

Jamaat ul-Fuqra / Muslims of America (MOA) members have had relationships with a radical African Sufi organization known as the Sankore Institute (SIIASI) and its affiliated with an Islamic youth group named Jawala Scouts.

Sankore is led by an Islamist cleric from Sudan. The Pennsylvania-based organization is also home to the Light of the Age Mosque that it officially set up in 2004. It is also known as Masjid Nur ‘az-Zamaan.[1] The FBI raided its offices in 2007.

Although members of the two organizations have been friendly since the 1980s, 2015 SIIASI research paper directly criticized Sheikh Gilani and MOA.

Sankore Institute

According to its website, SIIASI was founded in Sudan in December 1985 by the current Sultan of Maiurno (Uthman Dan Fodio), the group’s current sheikh (Imam Muhammad al-Amin) and its current founding director, Sheikh Muhammad Shareef. It is focused on translating works from the Sokoto Caliphate.[2]

SIIASI states that it has established classes in Houston, TX; Atlanta, GA and Compton, Los Angeles and Oakland, CA.

The membership consists largely of prison converts and former gang members from out of state.[3] It says it has a “curriculum” that is being taught to about 400 Muslim inmates in two correctional facilities in California.[4] Shareef says he was a Muslim chaplain in at least four state and federal penitentiaries in the U.S.[5]

Another prominent member of SIASSI/Light of the Age Masjid is Hamza Perez, a member of a hip-hop duo called “Mujahideen Team.” He was an Islamic teacher in a jail with a security clearance until anti-American statements he made in 2003 came to light. He now says he was immature and believes that jihad is an internal spiritual struggle against sin.[6]

However, his rap group’s song, “Welcome Home,” refers to Muslim inmates as “soldiers that were locked.” Other song titles include “Amerikkkan me,” “Gun Fire Sound” and “Day of Retribution.”[7]

The SIIASI website links to various radical websites, including the the Muslim Alliance in North America,[8] Mexica Movement and, notably, Imam Jamil Al-Amin, also known as H. Rap Brown.[9] The imam is ferociously anti-American, militant in his rhetoric and is imprisoned for murdering a police officer.[10] It says he is innocent of wrongdoing and the FBI and NSA are “fascist.”[11]

SIIASI’s website includes extremist content and its founding director, Sheikh Shareef, posts radical comments on the group’s website.

SIIASI’s Links to MOA

Research has shown that relationships exist between known members of MOA and the Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International (SIIASI). Both have links to Sudan, whose government is designated by the U.S. State Department as a State Sponsor of Terrorism.

MOA-affiliated sources say that the group is friendly with SIIASI and is similar ideologically. However, these sources say some distance exists because of MOA’s cultish devotion to Sheikh Gilani and some of MOA’s differences with SIIASI’s “radical black nationalism.” One source described SIIASI’s membership as very hostile to white people, although it accepts white converts to Islam.

Convicted Fuqra/MOA terrorist James Upshur, who belonged to the Colorado branch that was raided in 1992, belonged to a group named the Jawala Scout Hunting Club in Philadelphia.

MOA-affiliated sources say that the Sankore-linked Jawala Scouts are separate from MOA and MOA’s own Muslim Boy Scouts subdivision, but that Jawala Scouts welcomes hardline Islamists including MOA members in its activities. These sources describe the Jawala Scouts as having extremist teaching in line with Sankore’s ideology and physical exercises that include military-style training of boys and young men.

The MOA-affiliated sources include ones who have relatives who were simultaneously members of MOA and the Jawala Scouts in Philadelphia and Brooklyn. The sources said the Jawala Scouts were very “military-centered” with boys being required to wear combat boots, simulating combat with wooden rifles and learning martial arts, accompanied with an anti-Western education that includes teaching about jihad.

The sources say that many boys from MOA families that do not live in or near MOA’s “Islamic villages” will join the Jawala Scouts as an alternative.

Like MOA, SIIASI follows the Qadri Order in Sufism. However, its section with links to other Qadri Islamic Associations does not include a link to any MOA website.[12]

A SIIASI book published in 2015 criticizes Sheikh Gilani and his supporters. It states that the solution for problems in the African-American Muslim community must come from within and not foreigners, including “Pakistani ‘sufi’ Shayks recruiting African-Americans on behalf of the CIA to fight in Afghanistan or to sell heroin in the U.S. (as some kind of perverted twist on obligation of jihad).”[13]

It accuses Sheikh Gilani and his supporters of acting as “sectarians” from U.S.-allied countries who came to America to undermine the Dar ul-Islam movement. When Dar ul-Islam split, one faction including SIIASI followed Imam Jamil Al-Amin (also known as H. Rap Brown) who formed a militant movement known as “Umma.” The book says Al-Amin’s movement is now led by Amir Asim of Masjid Mujahideen in Philadelphia.

Shareef writes in the book that he visited the MOA compound in California known as “Baladullah” before it was abandoned in 2002. He recalls:

“When I met some of them at their ‘town’ east of Fresno, California, I saw drug addiction among some of the elders and their youngest teenagers roaming around aimlessly. There was no school that I could see and most of the living quarters lacked basic amenities.

 The last news I received regarding some of the California Fuqara is that they had been ordered by their spiritual or scholarly authorities in Pakistan to sell heroin on the streets of the U.S. as some kind of twisted take on jihad. The logic behind their arguments fell to pieces when it became clear that the local police confined their drug activity to the Black Belt, and their market was their own people—the very people who needed the invitation of Islam and to answer the call of Allah.

 The fact that these African-American Muslim families could not see that those in Pakistan to whom they owed allegiance did not have their or their people’s best interest at heart, is astounding to me.”[14]

The book accuses Sheikh Gilani and Imam Yahya, then-leader of Dar ul-Islam of contributing to a U.S. government plot to divide the African-American Muslim community. It says Gilani destroyed Dar ul-Islam “to meet the needs of the U.S. State Department in Pakistan and Afghanistan” in combating the Soviet Union.

Jihad

The SIIASI website has writings emphasizing the importance of violent jihad and admonishes moderate Muslims who it believes have failed to adequately stand up to the governments it accuses of waging war on Islam.

“The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace foretold that the truthful would be considered liars and liars would be considered the defenders of truth; and the trust of Islam will be given to wrathful youth who will be the cause of the affliction of Muhammad’s Ummah…. The Shehu once said that his jihaad will not cease until it reaches the Mahdi.”[15]

The group says Muslims must be committed to destroying Western governments and ask Allah for divine help towards that end:

“ [In] the west where we ask Allah ta`ala to destroy the infrastructure, the institutions, and systems which are used to oppress Muslims, while at the same time, allowing the Muslims who are caught within the grip of their oppression to suffer no harm and to prosper as the disbelievers implode and collapse around them.”[16]

 “In this context what the oppressed Muslim and the oppressed people wish for is the complete removal of the cause of their oppression. this can only happen with a complete eradication of the infrastructure, intelligence, economies and social structure of those who oppress…. Also by asking for Allah ta`ala to break up their social harmony and bring about discord in every element of their political, domestic, social and economic life. All of this falls under the lawfulness of the supplication of the oppressed against their oppressors. The names of individuals should be mentioned, along with the names of corporations, banks, think tanks and institutions that allow the oppressors to implement their oppression.”[17]

 SIIASI is especially vitriolic towards moderate Muslims that do not accept such interpretations of their faith:

“Since 9-11 the Muslims in the western hemisphere have been bombarded with swave and eloquent lectures by the ulama’s-suu (the venile scholars) about how they should not pray against those governments, institutions and agencies that do not love the honor of Islam. These ‘plantation preachers’ have sold their religion for a small price and have distorted the religion of Islam in order to garner favor with those who hate Islam and its people.”[18]

“It is abhorrent in these days to see Muslims in the US gathering in masaajid and reciting a ‘prayer of the oppressed’ and they do not pray against those who oppress them. The ”imams’ who are responsible for such gatherings are no different from the ‘plantation preachers’ who had oppressed enslaved Africans praying for their slave masters and all those who spitefully abused them.”[19]

“Rather than gathering Muslims and non Muslims in ‘churches’ in order to sing ‘songs’ called ‘the supplication of the oppressed’, which does nothing more than anethematize and opiate oppressed people; these ‘imams’ should be gathering Muslims and none Muslims alike and reciting supplications which are so decisive and detailed in the call for destruction against those who do not love the honor of Islam; that it increases the Muslims in faith and causes islam to enter the hearts of those who do not yet believe.”[20]

 In 2010, the SIIASI website condemned “the pseudo-religion redefined by the pacifist “imams” who deny the obligation of jihad and who have deluded their followers into the fruitless activity of supporting democratic constitutional government.”[21]

Multiple photos from the SIIASI website showed members holding large swords and one picture had a member with a rifle.[22] When Shareef was asked in 2005 why the FBI thinks members of his congregation are dangerous, he replied:

“Yes, every one of these brothers are dangerous. But f you leave them alone, you will find men who will protect you, protect their wives, protect their children and look out for their community.”[23]

Leader: Use Constitution As a Weapon & Wage ‘Litigation Jihad’

Shareef indicates that he first became aware that he was under FBI scrutiny in 1997. He says he left the U.S. in 1999 out of fear that he was being “set up” for prosecution, as he alleges was done to the “Blind Sheikh” responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. While away, he says he decided to use the Constitution against the U.S. government, comparing it to the humiliation of defeating a martial artist using his own weapon.

Shareef writes:

“I returned to the US in 2000 and positioned myself a close to the US constitution as humanly possible, so that when my enemies attacked they would end up striking at the very base of their own constitutional principles. This strategy served two functions: [1] it demonstrated that historically the enemies of our people in the US never believed in, or abided by the US constitution; and that the constitution was developed to always check and control those who challenged the status quo; and it was not applicable to those the status quo defined as ‘other’;

 [2] in their bloodlust (as the past 4 centuries clearly prove), they would blindly strike down and tear away the very foundations which they have always lorded over the world as their crowning achievement and which gave them their ‘exceptionalism’.

 As a result they would bring about their own undoing by violating the very principles that they have ‘worshipped’ since 1776.”[24]

He boasts that he subsequently thwarted three attempts by the FBI to infiltrate SIIASI with “agent provocateurs” and mocks the FBI for having “telegraphed its punches and exhibited a clear pattern that even a child could foresee what was coming.”

He acknowledges that the FBI raided SIIASI in 2006 after he suspended his official role in the group and while he was in China. He brags that the FBI failed to find evidence to shut down his group with, but complains that the raid “resulted in many leaving the jama’at and scattering.”[25]

Shareef claims that “the traditional allies of the U.S. government (the far-right extremists, conservatives and Zionists) teamed up in order to create a false narrative where there was none” about SIIASI and the campaign originates from Israel. He then accuses Joe Kaufman and Beila Rabinowitz of FrontPage Magazine, Dr. Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum, National Analyst and creator of Fuqra Files, Ryan Mauro, and anti-Islam activist Pamela Geller of distributing the Israeli disinformation and vows to sue them for “every dime they own.”[26]

The organization has also called upon Muslims to wage a “litigation jihad” to free Muslim “political prisoners” from the American criminal justice system, where courts “constitute the front line of defense of Islam.”

A long-term objective of these class action lawsuits would be to make an “internationally recognized SOCIAL CONTRACT between the United States and its Muslim national minorities; which is consistent with the shari’a, but does not challenge the sovereignty of the United States.”[27]

2006 Raid

Shareef moved the Light of the Age mosque shortly after members said in 2005 they had been interviewed by the FBI and he refused to disclose the new location. He claimed that he believed the questioning was aimed at him but that the move and secrecy had nothing to do with evading law enforcement. Some people said the move was due to a rift within the leadership.[28]

He told the reporter in 2005 that he and SIASSI would not cooperate with law enforcement and compared the Patriot Act to slavery and the Jim Crow laws. He said Muslims should stop being “afraid” and fight against such counter-terrorism laws.

In 2006, the FBI raided the site and arrested Larry M. Williams, also known as Hasan Ali, a convicted felon that had been attending the mosque for about three years.[29]

He was found in Utah with parts for a pistol and associated ammunition and a magazine for an assault rifle, which were confiscated. He was accidentally not apprehended at the time. Later, an arrest warrant was issued for him. He subsequently was arrested outside the Light of the Age Masjid. FBI agents then searched the mosque for four hours and questioned six members for two hours.[30]

SIIASI and its allies condemned the FBI for unfairly targeting Muslims and African-Americans and “desecrating” the mosque.[31]

Condemnations of Al-Qaeda, ISIS and Boko Haram

SIIASI condemns some terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) and Boko Haram, but the condemnation is based on their targeting of other Muslims. The organization also teaches that they are false flags of Western governments, thereby accusing the U.S. of perpetrating any atrocity committed by ISIS, etc.

 “In the mean time, the evil of this age has spit forth a scion of fanatics claiming to be Muslim puritans who have slaughtered more Muslims in this age than any of the ravaging forces of the west. Daesh, al-Qaeda and Boko Haram have committed so much death and mayhem among Muslims that any intelligent person can only conclude that these muharibeen are under the employ of the same disbelievers that they denounce.”[32]

Shareef urges readers to read an article claiming that “candidly exposed the U.S.’s bombing campaigns against Daesh [ISIS] are a hoax.”[33]

Support for Saddam Hussein

He says that Islamic prophecies are being fulfilled by the “tail spin of social, political and economic decline” of the U.S. that he says began with the Gulf War against the Saddam Hussein regime of Iraq.

Shareef points to Islamic verses saying that Baghdad will be a “great city” and “tyrannical governments of the world will gather there in order to collect its treasures.” These forces will then “sink into the earth vanishing faster than a huge rock sinks in quicksand.” He continues:

“From 1990 until the present we have witnessed the complete collapse of the so called American hegemony over the world. The US, the UK, the EU, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and all those nations which had a hand in the invasion and continued insecurity of the city of Baghdad have become ‘ruined’ and is sinking ‘into the earth faster than a huge rock sinks in quicksand.’” [34]

MOA and the Sudanese regime also condemned the Gulf War and supported Saddam Hussein.

Jawala Scouts

SIASSI incorporated a branch of the Jawala Scouts in Philadelphia in 2005[35], though MOA-affiliated sources say that the Jawala Scouts has been around in Pennsylvania and New York since the 1980s. Photos of the Jawala Scouts show boys as young as seven years old dressed in military fatigue and learning combat techniques and playing paintball.[36]

The Jawala Scouts are linked to other Islamic leaders and groups, including Kenny Gamble (now known as Luqman Abdul Haqq), the Muslim Alliance in North America, the United Muslim Movement and the Philadelphia branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).[37]

The Muslim Alliance in North Americas is led by a radical imam in Brooklyn named Siraj Wahhaj.[38] CAIR has been identified by the U.S. Justice Department as part of the Muslim Brotherhood and designated as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the largest terrorism-financing trial in U.S. history. It also has a history of radicalism and links to the Hamas terrorist group.[39]

[1] About Us. (2016). Light of the Age. http://www.lightoftheage.org/about.php

[2] SIIASI’s History. (2016). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International. http://siiasi.org/about-2/

[3] Mock, Brentin. (2005). Lost in Translation. Pittsburgh City Paper. http://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/lost-in-translation/Content?oid=1337681

[4] SIIASI’s History. (2016). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International. http://siiasi.org/about-2/

[5] Incarcerated Muslims. (2016). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International. http://siiasi.org/muslim-inmates/

[6] New Muslim Cool documentary, http://www.newmuslimcool.com/film

[7] “M-Team Song Lyrics,” New Muslim Cool page on PBS website,http://www.pbs.org/pov/pdf/newmuslimcool/nmc_lp_handout.pdf

[8] Mauro, Ryan. (2013). Muslim Alliance in North America. Clarion Project. http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/muslim-alliance-north-america

[9] Confederation. (2016). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International. http://siiasi.org/confederation/

[10] Pipes, Daniel. (2001). The Curious Case of Jamil Al-Amin. American Spectator. http://www.danielpipes.org/97/the-curious-case-of-jamil-al-amin

[11] The International Qaadiriyya Association. (2016). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International. http://siiasi.org/confederation/the-qadiriyya-brotherhood/

[12] The International Qaadiriyya Association. (2016). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International. http://siiasi.org/confederation/the-qadiriyya-brotherhood/

[13] The Decisive Solution: A Research Paper Submitted by Shaykh Muhammad Shareef bin Farid. (2015). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies: The Palace of the Sultan of Maiurno. http://siiasi.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/the_decisive_solution-updated.pdf

[14] The Decisive Solution: A Research Paper Submitted by Shaykh Muhammad Shareef bin Farid. (2015). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies: The Palace of the Sultan of Maiurno. http://siiasi.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/the_decisive_solution-updated.pdf

[15] Escatology. (2016). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International. http://siiasi.org/escatology/

[16] The International Qaadiriyya Association. (2016). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International. http://siiasi.org/confederation/the-qadiriyya-brotherhood/

[17] The International Qaadiriyya Association. (2016). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International. http://siiasi.org/confederation/the-qadiriyya-brotherhood/

[18] The International Qaadiriyya Association. (2016). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International. http://siiasi.org/confederation/the-qadiriyya-brotherhood/

[19] The International Qaadiriyya Association. (2016). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International. http://siiasi.org/confederation/the-qadiriyya-brotherhood/

[20] The International Qaadiriyya Association. (2016). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International. http://siiasi.org/confederation/the-qadiriyya-brotherhood/

[21] Mauro, Ryan. (2013). Muslim Group Calls for ‘Litigation Jihad.’ Clarion Project. http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/muslim-group-calls-litigation-jihad

[22] Sankore Institute. (2010). Americans Against Hate. http://www.americansagainsthate.org/Sankore_Institute.html

[23] Mock, Brentin. (2005). Lost in Translation. Pittsburgh City Paper. http://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/lost-in-translation/Content?oid=1337681

[24] Incarcerated Muslims. (2016). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International. http://siiasi.org/muslim-inmates/

[25] Incarcerated Muslims. (2016). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International. http://siiasi.org/muslim-inmates/

[26] Incarcerated Muslims. (2016). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International. http://siiasi.org/muslim-inmates/

[27] Incarcerated Muslims. (2016). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International. http://siiasi.org/muslim-inmates/

[28] Mock, Brentin. (2005). Lost in Translation. Pittsburgh City Paper. http://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/lost-in-translation/Content?oid=1337681

[29] Ove, Torsten and Moustafa Ayad. “Muslims Upset Over North Side FBI Raid,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 7, 2006. http://www.post-gazette.com/neighborhoods-city/2006/07/07/Muslims-upset-over-North-Side-FBI-raid/stories/200607070120

[30] Ove, Torsten and Moustafa Ayad. “Muslims Upset Over North Side FBI Raid,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 7, 2006. http://www.post-gazette.com/neighborhoods-city/2006/07/07/Muslims-upset-over-North-Side-FBI-raid/stories/200607070120

[31] Dyer, Ervin. “Mosque Members Denounce FBI Raid as Desecration,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 8, 2006. http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-city/mosque-members-denounce-fbi-raid-as-desecration-441219/

[32] Escatology. (2016). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International. http://siiasi.org/escatology/

[33] Confederation. (2016). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International. http://siiasi.org/confederation/

[34] The International Qaadiriyya Association. (2016). Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International. http://siiasi.org/confederation/the-qadiriyya-brotherhood/

[35] Mock, Brentin. (2005). Lost in Translation. Pittsburgh City Paper. http://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/lost-in-translation/Content?oid=1337681

[36] Jawala Scouts. (2010). Americans Against Hate. http://www.americansagainsthate.org/Jawala_Scouts.html

[37] Joe Kaufman and Beila Rabinowitz. (2010). Philadelphia’s Islamist Boy Scouts. FrontPage Magazine. http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/65463/philadelphias-islamist-boy-scouts-joe-kaufman

[38] Mauro, Ryan. (2013). Muslim Alliance in North America. Clarion Project. http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/muslim-alliance-north-america

[39] Mauro, Ryan. (2013). Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)—National Headquarters. Clarion Project. http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/council-islamic-relations-cair

Fuqra/MOA and Sheikh Gilani have a history of links to the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas, its Palestinian wing, was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997 by the U.S. State Department. The Brotherhood is not listed as a terrorist group, despite being the parent group of Hamas, but there is a bipartisan movement in Congress to designate it.

Relationships with Brotherhood Affiliates

MOA was linked to the “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman, the leader of Egyptian Gama’a Islamiyya, an affiliate of the Brotherhood.[1]

MOA was also linked to a Brotherhood affiliate name the Al-Kifah Refugee Center, the American branch of Makhtab al-Khidamat. It was led by Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Abdullah Azzam, the mentor of Usama Bin Laden. It is seen as the predecessor to Al-Qaeda.

Attempts were made to build a relationship with the Muslim Students Association, which was founded as a Muslim Brotherhood front. It is worth noting that all college chapters of MSA operate independently with some being more open to diversity and social unity than anti-Semitic postures and threats of violence.[2] A 1990 letter to President Bush says that MOA’s Quranic Open University has representatives with the Muslim Students Association.

Contact information for Ahmad El-Kadi, the leader of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, was found to be in MOA’s possession. He led it from 1984 to 1993. It is unclear why MOA possessed the information. It is theoretically possible that it was part of generic intelligence-gathering.

A Common Islamist Front

MOA has also had links to Sudanese cleric Hasan al-Turabi, who is essentially the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan. Turabi’s main focuses in the early 1990s was forming a common Islamist front against the West. This included having a massive terrorist summit in Khartoum in 1993. Sheikh Gilani was seen there and initially attempted to keep his attendance secret.[3]

A 1993 State Department intelligence document said that Sheikh Gilani is linked to a “mujahidin hub” that includes multiple allied Islamist terrorist groups that belong to the Muslim Brotherhood movement. It reads:

 “A close working relationship reportedly exists among [Gulbuddin] Hekmatyar, Egyptian Islamic Gama’at spiritual leader Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, Yemeni Islamic Jihad leader Sheikh Zindani and Sudanese National Islamic Front (NIF) leader Hassan al-Turabi. Sheikh Jilani, the leader of the Jama’at al-Fuqra based in Lahore, is also believed to have some ties to the mujahidin network. This circle of mutual admiration nurtures the network of safe havens, bases and logistical support.”[4]

The intertwined nature of the Islamist terrorist network that included the Muslim Brotherhood and MOA came into view in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. As terrorism expert Steven Emerson explained in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1998:

 “The culmination of this pan-Islamic militant partnership may have been seen in the World Trade Center bombing: Rather than being an attack dominated by the militant Islamic Jamaa from Egypt, evidence now shoes that the bombing was the product of collaboration from five different radical Islamic organizations, including the Gama Islamiya, Islamic Jihad, al-Fuqra, Sudanese National Islamic Front and Hamas.

The scope and breath of these militant Islamic groups should demonstrate unambiguously that, while not coordinated formally on an operational level, the militant Islamic groups network with one another in a sort of terrorist ‘internet.’”[5]

Ikhwanul Muslimun and Islamberg

The Islamberg land was originally linked to a non-profit registered as a church named Ikhwanul Muslimun, meaning “Muslim Brotherhood.” It was registered as a church on the property in 1974. It is unclear whether this is a direct link to the Muslim Brotherhood movement, but it is unlikely that such a name would be used for any reason other than affinity for the well-known Islamist movement.

The person who registered Ikhwanul Muslimun on the land that became Islamberg was contacted by the Fuqra Files creator, Ryan Mauro, in April 2012. The individual was a known long-time MOA member. He acted surprised that that the Ikhwanul Muslimun non-profit is still active and said they now go by the name of the United Muslim Christian Forum (MOA’s interfaith branch).

He said that he thought that the non-profit’s dissolution was reported to the IRS and would do so now. As of October 2016, it is still active (see picture below). This is significant because of its similarity to a case in Delaware where MOA “forgot” to report the dissolution of a non-profit.

By dissolving a non-profit but not alerting the IRS, its existence can be hidden while the administrators can maintain the benefits of having a “church.” The benefits include having an Employer Identification Number so operatives can set up tax-exempt bank accounts around the country that don’t need to be reported to the IRS.

MOA now makes the strange claim that the Ikhwanul Muslimun “church” changed its name to MOA as part of a secret plot by Muslim Brotherhood agents to defame Sheikh Gilani. Any crimes committed by MOA members associated with the non-profit should therefore be attributed to the Muslim Brotherhood infiltrators, not Gilani or the “real” MOA, the group argues.

Oklahoma City Terror Network

MOA had a commune in Talihina, OK and a presence in Oklahoma City that was connected to a broader Islamist terrorist network.[6]

In his authoritative book titled I Heard You Were Going on Jihad, author Mitchell Gray exposed an interconnected Islamist terrorist and extremist network in Oklahoma City centered around an address that he provided a pseudonym for.[7] The owners of the address ran an import company and owned low-income properties. The location is linked to a network of operatives from Fuqra/MOA, Al-Qaeda, Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood.

Funding from Pennsylvania Mosque

The MOA’s non-profit in Pennsylvania received significant funding from a mosque in the 1990s that appears to be linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. A declassified intelligence report says that the non-profit received many checks from the Islamic Society of Susquehanna Valley. An online directory of mosques places that facility at Sunbury, PA.[8] A now-defunct website for the mosque stated that events were held at the Ghulam Rasool Mosque in Sunbury. The website did not acknowledge any ties to MOA when it was last updated in 2000.

The mosque website linked to various organizations and individuals tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, such as Brotherhood spiritual leader Yousef al-Qaradawi, Fiqh As-Sunnah (a Brotherhood text) and the Islamic Society of North America. It also linked to the Islamic Circle of North America, a derivative of an Islamist party in Pakistan and to the Benevolence International Foundation, an Al-Qaeda front used to support terrorists in Bosnia and Chechnya.[9]

Guerrilla Training

It is probable that Muslim Brotherhood plans to develop paramilitary training camps in the U.S. was related to MOA’s own camps. The Blind Sheikh’s group, which is a Brotherhood affiliate, had a relationship with MOA that likely included use of MOA camps.[10]

In the early 1980s, Zeid al-Noman, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Executive Office in the U.S. and a member of the Brotherhood’s board of directors, gave a speech to Brotherhood members that included a discussion of guerilla training inside the U.S.

Al-Noman detailed the Brotherhood’s plans to collect intelligence, monitor adversarial forces like Zionists and conduct counter-intelligence against law enforcement agencies “so that we find out if they are monitoring us, are we not being monitored, how we can get rid of them.”

Part of MOA’s modus operandi is to set up security organizations as fronts and to bid on government contracts. They also applied for jobs in law enforcement.

He said that “there is weapons training in many of the Ikhwans’ camps” and refers to difficulties members are experiencing at a camp in Oklahoma, which may be the aforementioned MOA camp in Talihina.

Noman says that the owners of the camp grounds were requiring more information from Muslim visitors, including accurate identification. He said the police also arrived on one occasion and asked for identification cards and/or visas. Noman said the scrutiny forced them to go to another camp in Missouri.[11]

A 1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood memo lays out a strategy that includes “training on the use of weapons domestically” and says there are “noticeable activities in this regard.” The memo states that the Brotherhood’s “work in America is a kind of grand jihad…in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.” It emphasized partnering with like-minded Muslim groups, just like Sheikh Gilani was doing.[12]

A secret videotape filmed in 1991 or 1992 shows Sheikh Gilani advertising his guerrilla warfare training for Islamic fighters around the world. He boasts of having trained Palestinians to fight Israel. One featured class is specifically for fighting “Jews and Israelis.”[13]

The Palestinians supposedly trained by Gilani and MOA in Pakistan and Kashmir were most likely members of Hamas, the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Both Hamas and MOA opposed the peace process and any notion that pursuing Israel’s destruction should be abandoned.

American Muslim Alliance

Khadijah Ghafur, one of the top MOA officials who was convicted of running a charter school scam in California, was the Fresno regional representative of the American Muslim Alliance. Its President, Agha Saeed, said he met Ghafur at a conference in 1997.[14] The American Muslim Alliance is an Islamist group accused of having links to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Pakistani intelligence.[15]

2003 Counter-Terrorism Investigation

Drug Enforcement Agency documents from an investigation into Fuqra/MOA indicate that some connection to Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another Brotherhood/Hamas-linked terrorist group, was discovered. These specific files were kept by the El Paso Intelligence Center, which likely means that the intelligence related to MOA’s Texas branch.

The documents were indexed under Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Islamic Center of Lexington, the Chicago Islamic Center and the Ajouly Money Exchange.

Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) first began defending MOA in 2014 after the Clarion Project broke a story identifying a MOA enclave in Texas, accompanied with declassified FBI documents identifying MOA as an extremist group and terrorist threat.

CAIR distributed a biased article that whitewashed MOA.[16] When a CAIR official was confronted by Ryan Mauro, creator of Fuqra Files, on television about CAIR’s increasing ties to MOA, the official responded, “there has not been a terrorist group operating in America since 2001 because of the effectiveness of our intelligence and law enforcement.”[17]

MOA likewise defends CAIR as “highly respected.”[18] They falsely attack their critics (including Muslims) as financially-motivated and bigoted “Islamophobes” and suggest that a Zionist conspiracy is waging a war on Islam.

The U.S. Justice Department designated CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, a CAIR-linked charity that was shut down for financing the Hamas terrorist group. The Justice Department identified CAIR as an “entity” of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee, a secret body established by the Brotherhood to advance Hamas’ cause.[19]

In another terrorism trial, that of Sabri Benkhala, federal prosecutors said in a 2008 court filing:

“From its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists … the conspirators agreed to use deception to conceal from the American public their connections to terrorists.”

The United Arab Emirates, a Muslim country that previously supported CAIR, designated the organization as a terrorist group when it decided to ban the Muslim Brotherhood.[20]

Three officials from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) spoke at the MOA’s first annual International Islamophobia Conference in Schenectady on November 14, 2015.

MOA General Counsel Tahirah Amatul-Wadud lives in Springfield, Massachusetts and spoke at the New York event. She is on the board of the Massachusetts chapter of CAIR. The biography of her used by CAIR declines to mention her affiliation with MOA, instead referring to her generally as the “general counsel for a New York Muslim congregation.”

She posted an article by Sheikh Gilani on her Facebook account that preached that the Islamic State terrorist group (also known as ISIS or ISIL) is a front for British intelligence and that a Jewish conspiracy orchestrated the 9/11 attacks and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The article criticizes the U.S. for going to war with Nazi Germany:

“There was no need for America to go to war against Hitler. Hitler was not the enemy of America or the American people. There was a mutual animosity between Hitler and the Jews. So, the American people paid a very heavy price for fighting someone else’s war,” Gilani wrote.[21]

Imraan Siddiqi, the executive director of the Arizona chapter of CAIR, served as a delegate representing India. He was a member of the board of directors of the mosque hosting the event, the Muslim Community Center of Capitol District in Schenectady, New York.[22]

In 2013, Siddiqi retweeted a message that referred to the U.S. military as an “Occupying Army” and said that Americans should be “rescued” from serving in it.[23]

Dawud Walid, the executive director of the Michigan chapter of CAIR, was a featured speaker.

Walid has expressed support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and accused the West of secretly plotting to undermine the group after it won the presidency. He has also downplayed Hamas’ rocket attacks on Israel. He frequently characterizes the FBI and law enforcement as systematically persecuting innocent Muslims and minorities.

He says that the FBI infiltrates mosques with the objective of “basically cultivating and inciting people towards extremism.” He claims that the FBI is “basically manufacturing their own terrorism suspects to give the appearance that they’re actually doing something tangible in the so-called ‘War on Terrorism.’”

Walid was quoted by another CAIR official in 2014 as suggesting that fallen U.S. troops should not be honored on Memorial Day if they died in wars where he sees the U.S. as the aggressor.  He also said in 2014 that he was “not getting excited” about Independence Day because the U.S. “has yet to atone for slavery and ethnic cleansing.”[24]

Official Stance of Sheikh Gilani & MOA

Sheikh Gilani and MOA claim that they were victimized by a Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy to undermine support for Gilani by committing crime and violence. The group claims to have vanquished the Brotherhood from the United States and Gilani should be thanked. Gilani points to his condemnation of the terrorist tactic of suicide bombings as evidence of his sincerity.

As mentioned above in regards to the Ikhwanul Muslimun “church” on Islamberg property, MOA attributes any crime by its members to the Brotherhood. It claims that the Brotherhood, Salafists and Wahhabists are secret agents of the British, who are secret agents of the Satanic-Zionist conspiracy.

Gilani claims that once he discovered the infiltrators, “I was able to disband the world’s most dangerous setup of Wahhabis, the Ikhwanul Muslimun” and MOA has “gotten rid of Wahhabi Ikhwanul Muslimeen in America.”[25]

He claims that the Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda have tried to kill him six times in Pakistan and he must send his family to the U.S. for their safety.

However, MOA’s publishing company, Zavia Books, sells a book on Sharia Law by Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader. Qaradawi is one of very few Islamic leaders besides Gilani that MOA promotes.

[1] For more information on this relationship, read the section of this website about MOA’s relationships with other Islamist groups, specifically the Blind Sheikh and Egyptian Gama’a Islamiyya.

[2]

[3] Footage from the summit, including an interview with Sheikh Gilani, was in the award-winning “Seeds of Terror” documentary that can be watched on the Fuqra Files YouTube channel.

[4] “The Wandering Mujahidin: Armed and Dangerous.” (1993). State Department Intelligence and Research Bureau.

[5] “Foreign Terrorists in America: Five Years After the World Trade Center.” (1998), U.S. Senate, Committee of the Judiciary, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism and Government Information.

[6] For more information on the MOA network in Oklahoma, click here.

[7] Gray, Mitchell. (2015). I Heard You Were Going on Jihad. Mill City Press.

[8] Islamic Society of Susquehanna Valley. (n.d.). Islamic Valley. http://islamicvalley.com/iv/mosque/info/53M/islamic+society+of+susquehanna+valley

[9] In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful. (2000). Susquehanna Valley Islamic Society. http://www.oocities.org/svislamics/

[10] For more information on this relationship, read the section of this website about MOA’s relationships with other Islamist groups, specifically the Blind Sheikh and Egyptian Gama’a Islamiyya.

[11] Evidence from the Holy Land Foundation trial. Tape Number/CD number T13-T18 1 “Ikhwan in America.”

[12] An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America. (1991). Exhibit from the trial of the Holy Land Foundation: http://www.clarionproject.org/Muslim_Brotherhood_Explanatory_Memorandum

[13] The tape, titled “Soldiers of Allah,” was obtained by Martin Mawyer from a law enforcement source. More information about the film is available in the section of this website about guerrilla training.

[14] Sean Webby, Karen de Sa and Brandon Bailey. (2001). Muslim Enclave in California Draws Suspicion from FBI. Associated Press. http://lang.sbsun.com/socal/terrorist/1201/25/terror15.asp

[15] Shankar, Abha. (2016). IPT Exclusive: Document Reveals Omar Mateen’s Father Tied to Radical Islamist Groups. Investigative Project on Terrorism.

[16] Mauro, Ryan. (2014). CAIR Defends U.S. Jamaat ul-Fuqra Terror Group. Clarion Project.

[17] Mauro, Ryan. (2016). CAIR: No Terror Orgs in US. Clarion Project.

[18] A Discredited Islamophobe Attacks Muslim Woman Attorney in Blog. (2016). Islamic Post.

[19] Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) – Nat’l Headquarters. Clarion Project. http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/council-islamic-relations-cair

[20] Antonia Blumberg, C.A.I.R. and Muslim American Society Seek Clarity After UAE Designates Them On Terrorist List (11/18/2014), Huffington Post; Adam Taylor, Why the U.A.E. is Calling 2 American Groups Terrorists (11/17/2014) Washington Post; Ryan Mauro, UAE Doubles Down on Designation of CAIR as Terrorists (2014), Clarion Project.

[21] CAIR-Fuqra Official Announces Intention to Run for Governor (2016), Clarion Project.

[22] CAIR Intertwines with U.S.-Based, Terror-Linked Fuqra Group. Clarion Project. 

[23] CAIR Officials: U.S. Army ‘Occupiers,’ ‘Murderers.’ (2013) Clarion Project. http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/cair-officials-decry-muslims-us-military

[24] CAIR-Michigan. Clarion Project. http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/cair-michigan

[25] Sufi Leader El Sheikh Gilani: America Beware of Ikhwan Al-Muslimeen. (2013). Islamic Post. https://www.islamicpostonline.com/opinion/2013/01/29/sufi_leader_el_sheikh_gilani_america_beware_ikhwan_al_muslimeen-421/

Other Notable Articles

Dawud Walid-CAIR’s Michigan Chapter President. An IPT Report.

CAIR – Suspected and Supported by the Federal Government, By: IPT News, The Investigative Project on Terrorism (July 30, 2010)

“The FBI severed its relationship with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in 2008, saying until it determines “whether there continues to be a connection between” CAIR leadership and Hamas terrorists, the organization is not an appropriate liaison partner.

Two recent episodes show that, despite this rhetoric and evidence linking CAIR to a Hamas support network – in addition to unresolved questions about its current connections – government agencies continue to engage with the group, even sending its officials abroad to represent the U.S…” [Read More]

The Blind Sheikh’s fatwa calling for violent jihad against the U.S. was cited by Bin Laden as his authoritative justification for the 9/11 attacks. Rahman’s preaching included saying:

“Muslims everywhere to dismember their nation, tear them apart, ruin their economy, provoke their corporations, destroy their embassies, attack their interests, sink their ships, . . . shoot down their planes, [and] kill them on land, at sea, and in the air. Kill them wherever you find them.”[i]

The Blind Sheikh’s group was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department in 1997. It attacked Egyptian security personnel and government officials and Coptic Christians in the 1990s and tried to assassinate Egyptian President Mubarak in 1995. It also attacked tourists in Luxor, Egypt in 1997.[1]

The relationship can only be understood in the context of the time. The Islamist terrorist networks in the U.S. had a nearly unified infrastructure with shared membership and extensive cooperation despite ideological differences. Our research indicates that MOA was more of an integral part of this infrastructure at the time of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing than has been usually understood.

Sheikh Gilani was emphasizing the need for MOA to work with other Islamist militants and formed a secretive group called Soldiers of Allah for that purpose and, as he admitted in a secret videotape, to put distance between MOA and Soldiers of Allah activity.[2] A close ally of Gilani and the Blind Sheikh, Sudanese cleric Hasan al-Turabi, was working hard to form a common Islamist front against the West. These efforts included a massive terrorist summit in Khartoum in 1993 that brought together jihadists of all stripes. Attendees included representatives of the Blind Sheikh and Al-Qaeda, including possibly Osama Bin Laden himself according to some reports. Sheikh Gilani was seen there and initially attempted to keep his attendance secret.[3]

A likely intersection between the Blind Sheikh, MOA, Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas and Al-Qaeda happened in regard to paramilitary training. MOA had the camps and offered such training. At the same time, the Muslim Brotherhood was expressing its interest in guerrilla training on U.S. soil and the Blind Sheikh was actively arranging it. All four were components of the Al-Kifah Network that was involved in the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

These interconnections are reflected in a September 1993 report by the U.S. Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. It credibly alleges that Fuqra/MOA was actually a front for the Pakistani ISI intelligence service. Sheikh Gilani is responsible for indoctrination and recruitment, but the training is overseen by an ISI operative named Brigadier Imtiaz and the ISI and Intelligence Bureau and involves instructors from Sudan. A former member of MOA who traveled to Pakistan in 1999 told FuqraFiles.com that he saw Gilani with Imtiaz and other Pakistani intelligence personnel (like Khalid Khawaja, Gilani’s right-hand man and a close Bin Laden associate).

It further reports, “It should be noted that Jilani and Imtiaz have no operational responsibility in the U.S., for this rests with Sheikh Umar Abd al-Rahman in New York.”[4]. This is substantiated by the discovery of posters of the Blind Sheikh in the possession of Fuqra’s top terrorist operatives in Colorado. A photo of Gilani meeting with the Blind Sheikh in New York was also recovered.

Open Support for the Blind Sheikh

A MOA-affiliated source says that it was known that the Blind Sheikh was a “dear spiritual friend” of Gilani’s. The source says that Gilani ordered MOA members to stay up all night praying for the Blind Sheikh after he was arrested in 1993 and throughout his prosecution. Gilani told his followers that the Blind Sheikh was framed by the U.S. government.

MOA published a book in 1994 that denied that the Blind Sheikh had operational control of Sheikh Gilani’s American network but does not deny that an operational relationship exists. In fact, the language indicates that MOA sees the Blind Sheikh as an ally and religious authority for Muslims. It reads:

“Sheikh Abdul Rahman is a sheikh in his own right and has his own organization and followers. He is our Muslim brother and we are all part of the same Ummah, the worldwide community of Muslims.”[5]

The book also repeatedly attacks the “barrage of Zionist lies” against four Islamist leaders: Sheikh Gilani, the Blind Sheikh, Hasan al-Turabi (who is also linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.[6] This support for the Blind Sheikh is extremely significant because MOA has a cultish focus on Gilani and very rarely offers praise for other leaders. The upholding of the Blind Sheikh as a religious authority for Muslims to follow indicates a strong and little-known relationship. It also indicates that Sheikh Gilani would use parts of his network to act in accordance with the Blind Sheikh’s fatwas.

1981 Assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat

Sheikh Gilani claims to have had advance knowledge from Allah that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat would be assassinated on October 7, 1981.

The Blind Sheikh issued the fatwa authorizing Sadat’s murder. Another terrorist group named Egyptian Islamic Jihad is believed to have committed the assassination. Current Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri was a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad at the time and was arrested for illegal weapons possession. He was not charged with involvement in the murder.

Gilani claims that he had an out-of-body spiritual experience on September 3, 1981 and met the Prophet Muhammad, who then ordered a head of state to be killed on the date of the assassination. Gilani did not name Sadat by name, but it is obvious who he was referring to.

He claims that he did not tell anyone about his foreknowledge of the plot. He said that those honored with the spiritual status of a Fuqra cannot reveal the secret rulings of the Prophet Muhammad’s court. Gilani wrote, “throughout the period that the execution took place this information was kept secret.”[7]

Gilani writes in his first book that was distributed to his earliest followers,

“We support the assassination of Sadat and those who were ‘martyred’ or ‘imprisoned’ in carrying out this mission, even though none of them knew about the decision or were inspired by the dream.”[8]

In later statements, Gilani would refer to being detained and questioned in Pakistan at the request of a foreign government due to his foreknowledge of an assassination. This is undeniably a reference to Sadat’s death and indicates that the Egyptian government considered him a suspect.

Direct Link Between Gilani and Blind Sheikh

David Bowers, the undersheriff in Chaffee County who played the leading role in investigating the Fuqra/MOA terrorist network in Colorado, says that they found a picture of Sheikh Gilani with the Blind Sheikh together when the MOA sites were raided. The two were seated next to each other and others were standing. It was determined that the picture was taken at the MOA’s Quranic Open University in Wallkill, New York.[9]

The picture was in the possession of the MOA’s Mohammed Commandos’ Sector 5, a secret militant unit. This shows that MOA limited knowledge of the photo among its members but was somehow relevant for its terrorist unit. Convicted MOA terrorists James Upshur successfully fought to keep the photo from being accepted as evidence during his trial. He said he was being prosecuted because he’s black and a Muslim.

A MOA-affiliated source that spent years with the group in New York state confirmed that the group was closely associated with the Blind Sheikh’s group, including those involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He said that someone involved from overseas came to New York and spent time with MOA. He believes it was the Blind Sheikh but was not at the reported meeting to know for sure. Various MOA-tied sources say MOA closely worked with Blind Sheikh-linked militants, criminals and gangs. There were many MOA “members” or “associates” who, as one source put it, “were down with MOA because of the cause but did not swear allegiance to Gilani or buy into the Sufi cult ideology.”

One of MOA’s founders, Muhammad Hasib Haqq, said at a meeting with local law enforcement in 2002 that MOA had no links to the Blind Sheikh. Haqq said that he personally never met the Blind Sheikh and denied that he ever visited “us.” It is unclear if he was only referring to the Islamberg headquarters in Hancock or MOA entirely.[10]

Links Between the MOA Colorado Branch and the Blind Sheikh

The MOA branch in Colorado whose sites were raided in October 1992 for engaging in a wide range of criminal and terrorist activity had a large poster of the Blind Sheikh.[11] This is especially significant because of the group’s cultish devotion to Sheikh Gilani and aversion to anything resembling loyalty to another leader. The Blind Sheikh is the only leader besides Gilani to be upheld in this way.

A MOA-affiliated source with first-hand knowledge of the Colorado Fuqra members says that the group had extensive interactions with unknown Egyptians. The source said that no information was shared about these relationships. The involvement of the Egyptians was peculiar because the group consists almost entirely of African-American converts, not Arab-Americans or foreigners.

Two of the MOA Colorado members were found and apprehended very near to a camp in Pennsylvania that was used by “Blind Sheikh” members involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the follow-up “Day of Terror” plots. One former MOA member who lived in Pennsylvania around the time says that MOA had two camps in the state, one where MOA members lived and a second, more secretive one where paramilitary training with outsiders like Blind Sheikh supporters took place.

The Colorado branch was also involved in the murder of a controversial imam in Arizona. The surveillance team included an Al-Qaeda operative, Wadih El-Hage, who had contact with at least one of the participants in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and links to the Blind Sheikh.

A MOA-affiliated source says that the leader of the Colorado MOA, James D. Williams, took one of his regular trips to Pakistan in 1989 for four months. However, what was different this time is that he traveled with a non-MOA member from another Muslim community in the northern New Jersey area. MOA and Gama’a Islamiyya members both lived in the Jersey City area without conflict.

The pair also spent an unexpected three months upon his return in the New York and New Jersey area visiting with Muslims who did not belong to MOA. These meetings were never explained. After Williams returned to Colorado, there was an intense movement of members and greater security was implemented.

The source suggests that these events were related to a stronger relationship forming between Gilani and the Blind Shiekh. The source rejected the possibility that Williams or the Colorado MOA operatives were defecting to Blind Sheikh, saying they remained intensely loyal to Gilani and he encouraged MOA to be supportive of the Blind Sheikh.

1993 World Trade Center Bombing and “Day of Terror” Plots

A Unified Network

The “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman and Sudanese cleric Hasan al-Turabi, two allies of Sheikh Gilani, were linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the follow-up “Day of Terror” plots to bomb the United Nations headquarters, FBI office and Holland and Lincoln Tunnels. [12]

A U.S. government source told the Clarion Project’s Ryan Mauro that she saw an internal memo placing partial responsibility for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing on Sheikh Gilani and Fuqra/MOA. Another law enforcement source involved in a Fuqra/MOA investigation recalls seeing a list of Fuqra members that include about a dozen of the Blind Sheikh’s close associates.

MOA conceded in a book it published in the aftermath of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that one or more of the terrorists involved in the bombing or the planned “Day of Terror” had attended Gilani’s mosque in New Jersey. It is a meaningful admission because the book is full of denials and conspiracy theories, yet the group decided it should not or could not deny this point.[13]

A 1993 State Department intelligence memo says the bombing was carried out by “devout” followers of the Blind Sheikh and Sheikh Gilani. It said that Fuqra is part of intertwined Islamist terror network. It reads:

“A close working relationship reportedly exists among [Gulbuddin] Hekmatyar, Egyptian Islamic Gama’at spiritual leader Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, Yemeni Islamic Jihad leader Sheikh Zindani and Sudanese National Islamic Front (NIF) leader Hassan al-Turabi. Sheikh Jilani, the leader of the Jama’at al-Fuqra based in Lahore, is also believed to have some ties to the mujahidin network. This circle of mutual admiration nurtures the network of safe havens, bases and logistical support.”

It said that Sheikh Gilani was in Peshawar, Pakistan at the time, although Fuqra was based in Lahore. It noted that the “Blind Sheikh” Rahman’s organization continued to have links to the “mujahidin hub” in Peshawar.[14]

Testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1998 by terrorism expert Steven Emerson likewise framed the bombing as the fruits of an interconnected Islamist network in America that included Fuqra/MOA:

“The culmination of this pan-Islamic militant partnership may have been seen in the World Trade Center bombing: Rather than being an attack dominated by the militant Islamic Jamaa from Egypt, evidence now shoes that the bombing was the product of collaboration from five different radical Islamic organizations, including the Gama Islamiya, Islamic Jihad, al-Fuqra, Sudanese National Islamic Front and Hamas.

The scope and breath of these militant Islamic groups should demonstrate unambiguously that, while not coordinated formally on an operational level, the militant Islamic groups network with one another in a sort of terrorist ‘internet.’”[15]

Wadih El-Hage

MOA is linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing through Wadih El-Hage, an Al-Qaeda operative who took part in MOA’s murder of a controversial imam in Tucson, Arizona in 1990. He was part of MOA’s surveillance team.

Hage developed Al-Qaeda cells in Arizona using the Al-Kifah Refugee Office network, which was intertwined with Fuqra/MOA and the Blind Sheikh. He met with an Egyptian named Mahmud Abouhalima at the Al-Kifah office in Oklahoma City. Abouhalima was later convicted of involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Hage became Usama Bin Laden’s secretary and was convicted of involvement in Al-Qaeda’s bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998.

Mujahid Menepta

Another connection is through reported MOA member Melvin Lattimore, also known as Mujahid Menepta. He lived at an address that was the centerpiece of a broader terrorist network that included Al-Qaeda and Hamas.[16]

Participants in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing were linked to Menepta. When it was discovered that they used his travel visa, he claimed it was stolen or copied. Author Mitchell Gray also obtained a docket sheet from the Southern District of New York that showed that Menepta had been investigated by counter-terrorism officials around the time of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and subsequent terrorist plots in New York and New Jersey. He was not charged. [17]

He is a close associate of Al-Qaeda operative Zacharias Moussaoui, who is suspected of being the “20^th hijacker” who was unable to take part in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Moussaoui says that he was tasked with taking part in a follow-up wave of attacks.

Clement Hampton-El and Earl Grant

One member of Fuqra/MOA, Clement Hampton-El, was involved in the follow-up “Day of Terror” plots. He used the names of “Dr. Rashid,” “Rashid Hampton” and “Abdul Rashid Abdullah.”

Originally a member of the Nation of Islam, he was recruited for the jihad in Afghanistan and was a combat medic there for one year under the command of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (who had links to Gilani and ISI). He was wounded, went back home and immediately was involved with MOA. Law enforcement had an exceptionally tough time tracking him and determining his identity.

In May 1993, another Fuqra member named Earl Grant (also known as Abd Rashid or Abd Jalil) met with one of the “Day of Terror” plotters in Pennsylvania. Grant attempted to provide the terrorist cell with high-powered explosives but failed to obtain them. Hampton-El took the lead in determining what bombs to use and how to make or obtain them.[18]

In August 1993, the ATF arrested nine Islamists loyal to the Blind Sheikh that had four pipe bombs and 180 submachine guns, as well as automatic pistols. One of the guns was used in a drug-related murder in Brooklyn. The cell was led by Lamont Holder (also known as Massoud Shaheed). Hampton-El was the source of the pipe bombs.[19]

A MOA-affiliated source says there was conflicting stories about the level of involvement Hampton-El had in MOA, but all the accounts acknowledged that he was known well and considered to be a close “brother.”

A book published by MO in 1994 claimed that Hampton-El denied any affiliation with MOA, its Quranic Open University or even being affiliated with any MOA members. The text clams that the bombing was committed by a Satanic-Zionist conspiracy and the accused were framed.[20]

MOA and the Blind Sheikh’s group also crossed paths at a mysterious 35-acre Islamist training camp in Pennsylvania attended by some of those involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the “Day of Terror” plots.

“Camp Terror” in New Bloomfield, PA

The camp in New Bloomfield in Perry County of Pennsylvania was owned by an African-American convert named Kelvin Smith. He was born in Brooklyn and raised in N.J. He converted in 1980 and moved from Harrisburg to the camp in Perry County in 1986. He went by the name of Abdul Muhaimin.

Smith was an officer with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service at the time and worked in an office that was one floor above the FBI field office headquarters in Harrisburg.[21] He was also a security guard and martial arts instructor at a military academy in New Bloomfield.

His farm was used as a business. It had a gun shop and firing range and he provided courses in firearms, hunting, camping, tracking and similar activities. He said it had about 200 customers annually, including Boy Scouts and members of law enforcement. He advertised his classes in mosques in N.Y. and N.J. in the early 1990s.

It is reported that MOA members worked with the Al-Kifah Network, a coalition of Islamist terrorist groups (including the Blind Sheikh’s group and Al-Qaeda), to set up the paramilitary camp in Pennsylvania. Those associated with the camp said they were recruiting and training to “help Muslims in Bosnia.”[22]

This may be the camp that was used by MOA members in preparing the plot to set off bombs at the Hindu Festival of Lights in Toronto in 1991. Seized videotapes showed them making explosives and firing guns at a training camp in the state.[23] There is no information about any other possible candidate.

Two of the MOA members from the Colorado terrorist training camp operation were arrested in 1992 very close to Smith’s farm.

Later that year, Smith’s camp was used as a paramilitary training site by a group of Muslims linked to the “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman, the spiritual leader of the terrorists who committed the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and attempted to bomb four targets in New York City shortly thereafter.

The group of Islamist terrorists returned in early 1993 for four weekends of training. Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, visited the camp twice in January and February shortly before the attack on February 26.[24]

Three Islamist terrorists involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing underwent paramilitary training at the camp. Smith said he recognized two of the eight arrested for plans to bomb targets in New York City who visited his camp four times since Feb. Some of those involved in the bombing and the foiled plots were part of Fuqra/MOA.

Smith said he did not know who they were. He said he thought they were preparing to fight in Bosnia.[25]

Another individual named Yahya Abu Ubaidah Muhammad, previously known as Karl Dexter Taylor, was involved with the Blind Sheikh’s group and was arrested in Queens in February 1995 for delivering guns to the camp. He bought six assault weapons at a Virginia gun show in November 1992 and gave them to the group that trained at the site.[26]

Yahya Abu Ubaidah lived in the same apartment building as Clement Hampton-El, a reported MOA member or associate involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.[27] Ubaidah also had a martial arts school inside the building and instructed at Smith’s camp. He utilized his experience from serving two tours in the Vietnam War as a Marine.[28] The training included simulating attacks on power substations,[29] which documents seized from MOA show they also prepared for attacks on substations and likely committed one in Colorado.

Neighbors recalled seeing vans with N.Y. and N.J. license plates arriving at Smith’s camp. The guests were armed with rifles and wearing military camouflage and trained at nighttime.

Smith was approached by the FBI for information shortly before the bombing. He told the agents that he had no contact information for the trainees. During the discussion, he said that he is proud to serve in law enforcement but is “Muslim first” above all else. He then used a government-issued secure line that he had access to from being in the U.S. Fish & Wildfire Service to warn them that they had been indicted.

The camp was raided on June 26, 1993, as was Smith’s home in Centre Township. The FBI confiscated firearms from Smith’s vehicle. Media outlets dubbed the site “Camp Terror.”

Smith was found to have destroyed crucial evidence by throwing four semiautomatic rifles into the Delaware River. The authorities also searched his pond for weapons. An attendee of the training told the FBI that the group hid or disposed weapons at the camp.

It is believed that he used the money he earned from the trainees to buy ammunition and weapons, including assault rifles, for them to use on the property. He also used his Federal Wildlife Officer discount to purchase repelling equipment for one of the trainees in Brooklyn after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing took place. He lied to the FBI and said that all the weapons on his camp belonged to him.

Smith pled guilty in 1999 to lying to the FBI during the investigation and destroying evidence. He was sentenced to 366 days in prison.[30]

Smith denied belonging to Fuqra, answering the question by saying he is a Sunni Muslim. However, all MOA members deny Fuqra’s existence and identify as a Sunni-Sufi. Other MOA members have replied by saying they are Sunni when questioned.

i] McCarthy, Andrew. (2018). Kyrsten Sinema Promoted a Terrorist Lawyer. National Review. https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/kyrsten-sinema-promoted-a-terrorist-lawyer/

[1] “Country Reports on Terrorism 2015.” (2015). State Department Bureau of Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism. http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2015/257523.htm

[2] The “Soldiers of Allah” video is available on the Fuqra Files YouTube channel and is discussed in detail in the section of this website about guerilla training.

[3] Footage from the summit, including an interview with Sheikh Gilani, was in the award-winning “Seeds of Terror” documentary that can be watched on the Fuqra Files YouTube channel.

[4] Richard J. Leitner and Peter M. Leitner. (2010). Unheeded Warnings. Crossbow.

[5] Target Islam: Exposing the Malicious Conspiracy of the Zionists Against the World of Islam and Prominent Muslim Leaders. (1994). Quranic Open University and Pakistan Foundation for Strategic Studies.

[6] Id.

[7] Jilani, Mubarak Ali. (1981). Futuhat-i-Muhammadiyah. Quranic Research Institute of Pakistan: Lahore.

[8] Id.

[9] Our interview with David Bowers can be read in the section of this website for first-hand testimony.

[10] Video of the meeting can be seen on the Fuqra Files YouTube channel.

[11] For more information on the Colorado Fuqra’s terrorist and criminal activity, see the section of this website about MOA activity in Colorado.

[12] Al-Fuqra: Holy Warriors of Terrorism.” (1993). Anti-Defamation League: http://archive.adl.org/extremism/moa/al-fuqra.pdf

[13] Target Islam: Exposing the Malicious Conspiracy of the Zionists Against the World of Islam and Prominent Muslim Leaders. (1994). Quranic Open University and Pakistan Foundation for Strategic Studies.

[14] “The Wandering Mujahidin: Armed and Dangerous.” (1993). State Department Intelligence and Research Bureau.

[15] “Foreign Terrorists in America: Five Years After the World Trade Center.” (1998). Hearing before the Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism and Government Information of the Committee of the Judiciary. United States Senate.

[16] More information is available on this Oklahoma network in the section of this website that breaks down MOA activity by state.

[17] Gray, Mitchell. (2015). I Heard You Were Going on Jihad. Mill City Press.

[18] Richard J. Leitner and Peter M. Leitner. (2010). Unheeded Warnings. Crossbow. The information comes from a U.S. Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare report.

[19] Richard J. Leitner and Peter M. Leitner. (2010). Unheeded Warnings. Crossbow. The information comes from a U.S. Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare report.

[20] Target Islam: Exposing the Malicious Conspiracy of the Zionists Against the World of Islam and Prominent Muslim Leaders. (1994). Quranic Open University and Pakistan Foundation for Strategic Studies.

[21] Kiner, Deb. (2015). ISIS Arrest Was Not Midstate’s First Brush with Terrorism. Penn Live. http://www.pennlive.com/news/2015/12/isis_arrest_was_not_midstates.html

[22] Martines, Lawrence J. (2010). Jam’at Al-Fuqra, a.k.a. Society of the Impoverished. Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security International. Vo. 8, No. 3.

[23] Martines, Lawrence J. (2010). Jam’at Al-Fuqra, a.k.a. Society of the Impoverished. Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security International. Vo. 8, No. 3.

[24] 3 Suspects Recalled at Firing Range / Site Owner Cooperates with FBI. (1993). Associated Press. http://www.pennlive.com/news/2015/12/isis_arrest_was_not_midstates.html

[25] Kiner, Deb. (2015). ISIS Arrest Was Not Midstate’s First Brush with Terrorism. Penn Live. http://www.pennlive.com/news/2015/12/isis_arrest_was_not_midstates.html

[26] McKinley, James. (1995). Man Tied to Sedition Case Held in Gun-Running. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/22/nyregion/man-tied-to-sedition-case-held-in-gun-running.html

[27] McKinley, James. (1995). Man Tied to Sedition Case Held in Gun-Running. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/22/nyregion/man-tied-to-sedition-case-held-in-gun-running.html

[28] Goldman, John J. (1995). FBI Arrests Man Accused of Training Bomb Suspects. Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/1995-02-22/news/mn-34711_1_training-camp

[29] Kohlmann, Evan. (2004). Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe. Bloomsbury Academic.

[30] Kiner, Deb. (2015). ISIS Arrest Was Not Midstate’s First Brush with Terrorism. Penn Live. http://www.pennlive.com/news/2015/12/isis_arrest_was_not_midstates.html

Blind Sheikh

Other Notable Articles

Connecting dots between two of the two biggest terror attacks on U.S. soil, by Andrew McCarthy, Prosecutor. Available at National Review (June 14, 2016) (Regarding the Blind Sheikh Tie to Orlando ISIS-inspired terrorist, Omar Mateen).

“According to Fox News, Omar Mateen, the jihadist who carried out the mass-murder attack at a gay nightclub in Florida this weekend, was a student of Marcus Robertson, an Orlando-based radical Muslim who once served as a bodyguard to Omar Abdel Rahman — the notorious “Blind Sheikh” whom I prosecuted for terrorism crimes in the early to mid 1990s…”

Read more here or at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/436590/omar