Posted on 01/06/2004 9:20:34 AM PST by JohnBerger
In 1992, al Qaeda recruited U.S. veterans by exploiting a Saudi government program that had converted thousands of G.I.s to Islam after the Gulf War. Clement Rodney Hampton-El, an African-American convert to Islam convicted of plotting in 1993 to blow up New York City landmarks, was called to a meeting at the Saudi Embassy in December 1992 and given the names of U.S. servicemen about to finish their tours of duty, whom he attempted to recruit as volunteer mujahideen and paramilitary trainers for a bin Laden-sponsored insurgency in Bosnia. The man who gave Hampton-El the list of servicemen was a Jamaican-born Islamic cleric named Bilal Philips, according to Hampton-El's court testimony, who ran the Gulf War conversion program on behalf of the Saudi government.
(Excerpt) Read more at intelwire.com ...
We were all briefed that to witness to a Saudi about Jesus Christ violated the status of forces agreement and would land anyone who did it in a world of serious hurt.
In fact, in Saudi Arabia, to prosylite a Muslim into any other religion carries the death penalty.
We saw hundreds go into the tents to talk to the mullahs.
Most were young black men.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that at least a portion of those who were converted (during, not after Desert Storm) later went on to lend military aid to Saudi in the areas of intelligence and logistics and military training.
BUMP!
Suspect said he had ties to terrorist group
excerpt:
In September 2001, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement interviewed Hammoud because someone had anonymously called saying Hammoud had made a comment that the Oklahoma City bombing was going to be small compared to what was coming. Hammoud told agents that he had said that Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, could be considered a martyr for his stand against the U.S. government, according to Baugher's affidavit.
There are almost certainly some active duty soldiers who are al Qaeda infiltrators. The WPost story linked above gets into some of that, and FrontPageMagazine had a recent article that dealt with the Muslim chaplaincy program:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/readarticle.asp?ID=11210
In the Intelwire story, Hampton-El's testimony clearly indicates that there were some active duty soldiers assisting the recruitment effort, although the effort itself focused on retiring servicemen.
Hampton-El was trained in firearms use by senior al Qaeds operative Ali Mohammed, who was a Sgt. in the Special Forces from 1984 through 1989. He was an al Qaeda-linked operative during this period, and the firearms training took place in 1989. Others attending that training included Mahmud Abouhalima, one of the WTC 1993 plotters and Siddig Ali, one of the Landmarks plotters.
Landmarks plotters had numerous military manuals and documents, and Hampton-El testified that he received military training manuals at Fort Belvoir at the same time he got the servicemen's names.
For all intents and purposes, Ali Mohammed is the first clear and indisputable infiltration of the military and the only one that has been publicly disclosed in an unambiguous way.
JMB
Bilal Philips is Jamaican, and Hampton-El was associated with al Fuqra, a primarily black Muslim sect based in the U.S. which has ties to al Qaeda. So it's a fair bet that they were targeting African-Americans specifically.
Interestingly, al Fuqra operates in a very similar manner to white separatists like those at Elohim City, favoring remote rural compounds with massive stockpiles of firearms.
JMB
wow ! and yikes !
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