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Newsday
June 27, 1993, Sunday, CITY EDITION
Correction Appended
SECTION: NEWS; A STRIKE AT TERROR; Pg. 6
Other Edition: Home Pg. 6

Black Muslim Sect Scrutinized

By Knut Royce.
WASHINGTON BUREAU. Jim Mulvaney, George E. Jordan, M. P. McQueen and Timothy M. Phelps contributed to this story

Washington -- A shadowy black 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.

(snip - same text as previous article already posted)
Most of the targets of assaults attributed to Fuqra members have spiritual or cultural connections to India - Pakistan's chief foe - or are Muslim groups or leaders whose teachings stray from orthodoxy.

Local, state and federal law enforcement files, for instance, show that members of the sect are suspected of having assassinated an Indian government official in Tacoma, Wash.; a controversial Muslim leader in Tucson, Ariz.; and Indian doctors in a Kansas City suburb and in Augusta, Ga. In addition, authorities say they have firebombed Hindu and Muslim houses of worship from San Diego to Queens.

A recent internal FBI report asserted that Fuqra's list of enemies includes Israel, Hindus and Indians, the Jewish Defense League, Hare Krishnas, the Nation of Islam, other Muslims and the U.S. government.

"The Fuqra sect definitely illustrates that they advocate purification of their [Muslim] religion by force or violence," said David Bowers, undersheriff of Chaffee County in Colorado, who has gathered intelligence on the sect for several years. Bowers' jurisdiction includes one of the sect's facilities - a 101-acre armed compound that was abandoned last fall when authorities raided the site. The state charged several male members with fraud and murder and bombing conspiracies.

Sheik Jilani was involved in purchasing the Colorado compound, signing the 1985 contract as Mubarik Shaw Shah. Records indicate he also was involved in buying the compound in the Catskills.

Living conditions at the facilities are austere - the Colorado compound, for instance, had no running water, electricity or phones. The 55-acre New York compound, which houses an estimated 300 people, mostly children, is a collection of sparsely furnished house trailers spread along a rutted dirt driveway.

Fuqra - an Arabic word for poverty - is what authorities describe as Fuqra's classically structured terrorist cells.

During an operation, the officials say, members are often kept in the dark about the identity of others in the cell and communicate only through pay phones at pre-determined times.

The cells were initially called "Muhammad Commandos" but are now known as "Soldiers of Allah," according to government sources and Fuqra documents obtained by New York Newsday. Each cell is assigned a "sector," or geographic region. One knowledgeable administration source said that Fuqra currently maintains five cells.

Fuqra "commandos" or "soldiers" are suspects in the 1983 assassination in Canton, Mich., of Dr. Mozaffar Ahmad, leader of the rival Ahmadiyya sect; the 1984 assassination in Tacoma of Lela Nevaskar, a courier for then-Indian President Indira Gandhi; the 1990 murder in Tucson of popular though controversial Imam Rashad Khalifa, who preached that the Koran was written by man, not Allah.

They are suspected of having firebombed Muslim houses of worship from San Diego to Quincy, Mass.; Hindu temples from Seattle to Philadelphia, and even two Buddhist temples in Rockford, Ill.

Though federal agencies trace some firebombings and homicides to Fuqra members as early as 1977, it was not until 1983 that the sect launched what appear to have been well-planned and coordinated attacks on its enemies.

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at the Rand Corp. in Santa Monica, Calif., said that Fuqra held its first Jihad Holy War council for North America in Toronto in 1983.

An internal Fuqra document, dated that year and seized by Colorado authorities in 1989, details the goals of the "Muhammad Commandos of Sector 5." The memorandum records the first meeting of the Colorado-based cell and chastises its members for meeting in a room "not very sound-proof" and for arriving simultaneously, possibly drawing unwanted attention.

It then directs the novice commandos to train in the use of "explosives, incendiaries, and demolition preparation and booby traps. The course will embrace the handling, preparation, calculation and ignition of all normal types of various types of incendiary bombs."

The participants in that inaugural meeting were identified in the memo. They included James Upshur, Vicente Pierre, Edward McGhee and James D. Williams, who were charged this year by the Colorado attorney general with racketeering. One count accuses Williams of conspiring to bomb a Denver Hindu temple in 1984, as well as plotting to kill Khalifa, who was knifed to death in 1990.

The memo's reference to "Sector 5" suggests there were at least four other sectors, or cells. And other cells appear to have been activated earlier. In July, 1983, for instance, Stephen Paster, a Fuqra member living in a safe-house in Compton, Calif., firebombed a Portland, Ore., hotel owned by the followers of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Paster was born and raised Jewish but converted to Islam and became one of the Fuqra organizers in America.

Severely injured when one of the three pipe bombs exploded in his hands, Paster, one of the sect's few white members, jumped bail but was rearrested and convicted in 1985.

Just weeks after the Portland bombing, Fuqra commandos murdered a leader of a competing Muslim sect, the Pakistani-based Ahmadiyya Movement, in a Detroit suburb. They then firebombed its center in Detroit. The two arsonists perished in the flash-fire and the murder weapon was recovered near their bodies.

In the words of the law enforcement report, the attacks were "the result of Fuqra taking exception in the manner [in] which [Ahmadiyya] practiced the Muslim religion."

Some local and state law enforcement agencies acknowledge that their investigations of some of the assassinations were hampered because they were unaware of Fuqra's existence. On occasion, local police departments learned only years later that evidence found in another part of the country linked the Fuqra to crimes in their cities.

That, for instance, was the case in Tacoma, where the Aug. 1, 1984, murder of Lela Nevaskar, a courier for then-Indian President Indira Gandhi, and her sister and brother-in-law, Indira and Pramod Gadre, remains an open case.

Jim O'Hern, a Pierce County detective who investigated the triple homicide, said he initially believed the killers were Sikh militants, since the murders occurred several weeks after the Indian government had raided the Sikhs' holiest shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, killing hundreds.

What appeared to have been a Sikh warning of impending revenge had been mailed in July to Indians in Seattle and elsewhere, ordering them to leave the United States by Aug. 1.

"We looked at the Sikhs because of the hate literature," O'Hern said.

Was Fuqra acting for the Sikhs? [For those who don't know, the Sikhs were in charge of security at the Murrah building]. In its October, 1992, article, the Times of India said that Pakistani military intelligence, which supports the Sikhs, uses Fuqra for terrorist operations in the United States. U.S. government officials say there is credible evidence that Pakistan's military intelligence supports terrorist activity on behalf of Sikhs inside India. But, said one of the officials, "the state of evidence" linking Fuqra to Pakistani intelligence services is "just too murky."

A breakthrough in exposing Fuqra's activities in the United States came in 1989, when Colorado Springs police who were investigating burglaries in rental lockers in the outskirts of town stumbled across an assortment of weapons, explosives and remote control devices - plus a treasure trove of Fuqra documents, including detailed surveillance notes and photographs, target lists and meticulous instructions for carrying out what authorities say were acts of terrorism.

Besides documents relating to the Tacoma murders, they found evidence they say implicates Fuqra in the 1984 bombing of a Hindu temple in Denver and the murder of Sheik Khalifa in Tuscon.

When the Colorado Springs police found notes and photographs indicating the Tucson attack was being planned - including surveillance photographs of the mosque and a three-page handwritten plan of attack - the sheik was contacted. He "did not seem unusually surprised that a group such as this had contemplated killing him," a detective reported.

One week later, Jan. 31, 1990, Khalifa was found stabbed to death.

The handwritten plan included some chilling passages. Because there was a high likelihood of police patrols, it said, the "dispatching [of] the subject(s)" should be "in the quietest method feasible: knife, garrotte . . ."

"He may not be there" at the time anticipated, it said, so "As we wait, everyone who comes must be eliminated until he shows up."

QUOTES:
1) "The government is trying to create a blueprint to destroy us, to pull another Waco and destroy us," - Husain Abdullah, head of Brooklyn security firm and early organizer of Fuqra in the U.S.
2) "The Fuqra sect definitely illustrates that they advocate purification of their [Muslim] religion by force or violence." - ' David Bowers, undersheriff of Chaffee County in Colorado, who has gathered intelligence on the sect for several years*****

Violent Connections (graphic)

Some terrorist acts that investigators have linked to the Fuqra sect:

Aug. 31, 1979. Violence at Hare Krishna temple in San Diego.

Nov. 21, 1979. Violence at Islamic-Iranian temple in Queens.

Sept. 1, 1982. Violence at Islamic Cultural Center in Tempe, Ariz. July, 1983. The Hotel Rajneesh in Portland is bombed. Three pipe bombs are placed in a fourth-floor room of the hotel by Stephen P. Paster of Los Angeles, who is reportedly one of the organizers of Fuqra in America.

Aug. 8, 1983. Dr. Mozaffar Ahmad, a leader of the Muslim sect Ahmadiyya Movement, is shot to death in Canton, Mich., a Detroit suburb. Police identified William Cain of Akron, Ohio, as the killer. Cain and another Fuqra member, Calvin Jones, die shortly thereafter while setting a fire at the Ahmadiyya Center on Detroit's west side.

June 16, 1984. The Hare Krishna temple in Philadelphia is firebombed. June 17, 1984. The Vedanta Society temple in Seattle is bombed. Also bombed was the Integral Yoga Society.

June-July, 1984. A defective bomb was found at the Kansas City, Mo., Vedanta Society temple. No arrests have been made.

Aug 1, 1984. John Liczwinko of Seattle, affiliated with the Seattle Vedanta Society, is attacked.

Aug. 1, 1984. The Hare Krishna temple in Denver is firebombed. Documents obtained in a 1989 raid indicate that the bombing was "apparently perpetrated" by a Fuqra cell then living in Englewood, Colo. Aug. 1, 1984. A Hindu physician, Srinivasu Dasari, of Overland Park, Kan., is kidnapped. Victim remains missing, presumably dead.

Aug. 1, 1984. Three East Indians are shot to death in a suburb of Tacoma, Wash. No suspects arrested.

Feb. 1, 1985. Fire breaks out at a Leetsdale, Colo., power station. June 22, 1985. Islamic mosque in Houston is attacked.

July 5, 1985. The Vat Thothikalam Lao in Rockford, Ill., is attacked. Dec. 1, 1985. Laotian temple in Rockford, Ill., is attacked.

May 28, 1986. Randell Gorby of Bethany, W.Va., who was linked to the Hare Krishna temple in Philadelphia, is attacked and injured.

Sept. 17, 1988. A doctor was shot to death in front of Humana Hospital in Augusta, Ga.

Jan. 31, 1990. Rashad Khalifa, controversial Muslim leader in Tucson, Ariz., is stabbed to death.

March 30, 1990. The Islamic center in Quincy, Mass., is attacked.

Jan. 11, 1991. The Islamic Cultural Center in San Diego is attacked.
SOURCE: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms

CORRECTION: (June 28, 1993)
A Newsday caption yesterday incorrectly identified four men as founders of Fuqra, a black American Muslim sect with ties to Pakistan and alleged ties to a series of bombings and assassinations. The men are members of the sect.

GRAPHIC: Photos-
1) Founders of Fuqra, from left: Vicente Pierre, 2) Edward McGhee, 3) James Williams and 4) James Upshur.

Was Fuqra acting for the Sikhs? [For those who don't know, the Sikhs were in charge of security at the Murrah building]. In its October, 1992, article, the Times of India said that Pakistani military intelligence, which supports the Sikhs, uses Fuqra for terrorist operations in the United States. U.S. government officials say there is credible evidence that Pakistan's military intelligence supports terrorist activity on behalf of Sikhs inside India. But, said one of the officials, "the state of evidence" linking Fuqra to Pakistani intelligence services is "just too murky."

Wow! I kept thinking that there couldn't be any link here because Sikhs are definitely not Muslims, but I couldn't shake the suspicion anyway. And now here it is, Muslims supporting Sikh separatists--I guess because the separatists are causing India great pain. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend?"

For people who haven't read the many AKAL threads, there is a link between AKAL and Bill Clinton via Earl Potter, attorney and Clintonista fund-raiser. Also, one of AKAL's higher ups in their herbs and healing division cured Clinton's scratchy throat. Sorry I'm too tired now to search through all the many, many long threads to find out the cite on that one and the guy's name, but it's in there.

Certainly these tenuous links of BC, AKAL, M.E. terrorists, and the OKC bombing do not PROVE his complicity in the bombing itself. Nor does the AKAL/TEG negligence prove they were complicit in the bombing itself. The fact that janet reno's DOJ later gave AKAL very lucrative contracts for very sensitive guard duties (duties formerly handled by U.S. Marshalls) certainly doesn't prove complicity in OKC or any atrocities still to come. But all these things bring up an awful lot of questions which lead to an awful lot of coincidences. The links are tenuous but many, and, like a fragile, almost invisible spider web, when the light hits them just right, you can see the intricate pattern.

Rush L. has reminded us recently of how Clinton was basically stopping people in the streets to tell them how he almost had OBL, blah, blah, blah; but we know he made no serious efforts to do so. Everybody's been commenting on how thrashed he was at his drunken speech with his normally perfect hair looking all skanky. What's the matter with him? Is it just his increasing irrelevance, or might it be a desperate fear that some of those links just might catch the light at a time when Americans are looking for blood? OTOH he was probably just xxxxfaced.

BTW, Nita, you might be interested in this other website that discusses your (and others') efforts in the AKAL threads.