Ummm.... Has anyone mentioned yet that this is a black Muslim group? This will be interesting to see how the feds get around the PC police to start making arrests.
Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.
NEWS; Pg. 1The Buffalo News
June 28, 1993, Monday, City Edition
TERROR PROBE EXPANDS TO BLACK MUSLIM GROUP
From News Wire Services
NEW YORK -- The widening investigation of the latest terrorist bomb plot may touch on a radical Black Muslim group that authorities have linked to a string of firebombings and other violence, aimed mostly at other religious groups.
Law enforcement sources were quoted Sunday in New York Newsday as saying Clement Rodney Hampton-El -- the only U.S.-born suspect among the eight men, five of whom were Sudanese nationals, arrested four days ago -- is a member of the organization, called Fuqra. The name is derived from the Arabic word fuqr, meaning poverty.
The FBI had no comment on the organization or any connection with Hampton-El, spokesman Joe Valiquette said Sunday. There was no suggestion that Fuqra had other ties to the group of Muslim fundamentalists who, the FBI says, were preparing to bomb the United Nations, a federal office complex housing FBI offices and the Holland and Lincoln tunnels connecting Manhattan with New Jersey. But Hampton-El's alleged assignment -- to provide the explosives -- piqued interest in his purported involvement with the group that is suspected of 16 bombings, half a dozen murders and several other acts of violence across the United States since 1979.
Fuqra was said by some reports to have ties to Pakistan. Newsday quoted an internal FBI memo saying the group's enemies list has included Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Hare Krishnas, other Muslims and the U.S. government. The newspaper, quoting law enforcement sources, also said a recent "suspicious" incident had prompted officials to assign federal marshals to protect an assistant prosecutor and the federal judge in the World Trade Center bombing case.
It said the incident occurred near the home of the unidentified government attorney about a month ago. U.S. District Judge Kevin Duffy was given special escort to and from court as a precaution, it said. Neither the FBI nor the Marshals' Service would comment on the report.
In another development, the Sunday Patriot-Ledger in Harrisburg, Pa., said FBI agents raided a central Pennsylvania farm, owned by a Muslim who also operates a shooting range and gun shop on the property. They brought along Navy divers who spent several hours searching a pond for an undisclosed purpose.
David J. Malarney, agent in charge of the FBI's Harrisburg office, said authorities were investigating whether farm owner Kelvin Smith was linked to the bomb-plot suspects, but refused to say if they found anything.
Smith told the Patriot-Ledger he had no connection to the group and didn't know whether any of its members had visited his firing range. Smith cooperated with the investigation, federal authorities said.
"They (the agents) didn't find anything. They didn't take anything. They gave me my guns back," he told the newspaper.
Authorities believe the shooters may have panicked under the pressure of mounting surveillance and thrown into the pond the firearms they intended to use in attacks on U.S. and foreign officials.
Fuqra reportedly has several rural retreats established over the years by sect members at locations from South Carolina to the Colorado Rockies and the California desert. Newsday said authorities estimate that Fuqra has 1,000 to 3,000 members in the United States.
The sect's U.S. origins can be traced to 1980, when Sheik Mubarik Ali Jilani Hasmi of Pakistan began preaching at a black mosque in Brooklyn.
He later returned to his base in Lahore, Pakistan, but has traveled to the United States a number of times, authorities said.
U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials say that U.S. members of Fuqra regularly send money to the sheik in Pakistan, and that some members have traveled to Lahore for religious indoctrination and terrorist training.
Terrorism specialists suspect that Fuqra is supported -- or at the least condoned -- by influential Pakistani government officials.
Politicians and others, meanwhile, are clamoring for the arrest of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian Muslim cleric, who some believe influenced the plot to blow up parts of the city and the Feb. 26 bombing of the Trade Center.
The sheik, who has a Jersey City, N.J., store-front mosque, is appealing a deportation order for entering the United States in 1990 under false pretenses.
Politicians, including New York City Comptroller Elizabeth Holtzman, U.S. Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and U.S. Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, R-N.Y. -- reportedly the target of assassins -- have urged the government to take action.
"This man has been tied to the assassinations of Anwar Sadat and (Rabbi) Meir Kahane, the bombing of the World Trade Center and now this horrible plot to blow up the U.N. and city arteries," State Attorney General Robert Abrams said Sunday. "I think the U.S. should stop pussyfooting around with this guy and use the strongest sanctions, ranging from arrest to deportation."
"Surely we are aware of where the sheik is," Carl Stern, a Justice Department spokesman, said Sunday. "If matters are being handled the way they are there must be a reason for it."
The New York Times reported today that the Clinton administration decided not to arrest the sheik even though federal law enforcement officials concluded he knew details of the plot to detonate four bombs in the city.
The officials told the Times that the decision was made after a series of meetings Tuesday. The final decision was made by Attorney General Janet Reno on legal and tactical grounds, including the cleric's usefulness as a link to Muslim extremists.
In addition, the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they didn't have information about his precise role and how directly he might have been involved.
Ms. Reno has been briefed about the evidence involving the sheik, which reportedly includes FBI wiretaps on which the sheik participates in conversations about the planned bombing campaign.
FBI agents raided the sheik's Jersey City apartment Thursday and seized books and documents.
Some reportedly were related to Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali and Hampton-El, allegedly key players in the recent plot.
Sheik Abdel-Rahman has admitted that Siddig acted as his interpreter as recently as a week before the arrests. But he has denied any involvement in the plot and denounced attacks on property or life.
There are often several factions among the Black Muslim groups, with the more militant ones being extremely dangerous and very anti-white.
Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.
NATIONAL, Pg. A5Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
June 28, 1993, Monday,
SOONER EDITION
MUSLIM SECT UNDER SCRUTINY; ITS MEMBERS ENGAGED IN ASSASSINATIONS, BOMBINGS ACROSS U.S.
KNUT ROYCE, NEWSDAY
A shadowy African-American Muslim sect with ties to Pakistan is coming under closer law enforcement scrutiny as investigators probe the World Trade Center bombing and the alleged plot to bomb the United Nations and the Hudson River tunnels, according to law enforcement sources.
Authorities say that members of the sect, known as ''Fuqra,'' during the past decade have carried out or attempted dozens of bombings and assassinations in locations scattered across the United States and Canada. But the sect has not been publicly or officially linked to either New York case. Husain Abdullah, the head of a Brooklyn, N.Y., security company and one of the early organizers of Fuqra in the United States, denies that the sect engages in terrorism.
''We do not commit acts of terrorism in this country,'' he said in an interview last week. ''Just because other members of a faith commit crimes does not mean that we are criminals. We do not preach crime.
''The government is trying to create a blueprint to destroy us, to pull another Waco and destroy us,'' he said, in reference to the Texas standoff and inferno that resulted in the deaths of members of the religious sect led by David Koresh.
Abdullah was first contacted by Newsday at a Fuqra compound in the Catskills near Deposit, N.Y. The 55-acre site near the Pennsylvania border is described by law enforcement officials as the most important Fuqra facility in the country.
It is one of several rural retreats established over the years by sect members at locations from South Carolina to the Colorado Rockies and the California desert.
Authorities estimate that there are between 1,000 and 3,000 Fuqra members in the United States.
The sect's U.S. origins can be traced to Brooklyn in 1980, when a charismatic Muslim mystic from Pakistan, Sheik Mubarik Ali Jilani Hasmi, began preaching at what at that time was the most influential black American mosque in the borough. Jilani later returned to his base in Lahore, Pakistan, but has traveled to the United States a number of times, authorities say.
Efforts to contact Jilani in Lahore were unsuccessful. A neighbor said Jilani was well known in that part of the industrial city of more than 3 million, but that not much was known about his current activities. ''I have seen several black Muslims with him,'' said the neighbor.
U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials say that U.S. members of Fuqra regularly send money to Jilani in Pakistan, and that some members have traveled to Lahore for religious indoctrination and terrorist training.
Because their activities appear to be unimpeded by Pakistani authorities, specialists suspect that Fuqra is supported -- or at the least condoned -- by influential Pakistani government officials. The Times of India reported last fall that Fuqra is used by Pakistani intelligence agencies ''for funneling assistance'' to Kashmiri separatists in India.
According to the files of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Fuqra members are suspected of involvement in 16 bombings or attempting bombings throughout America since 1979. But the FBI, which has the lead responsibility for fighting terrorism, seems to have remained on the sidelines while local and state police brought criminal charges against a handful of Fuqra members over the past decade.
The FBI did not respond to requests last week for an interview regarding Fuqra. The agency does not list Fuqra as a terrorist group in its annual reports on domestic terrorism.
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown