Pakistan group threatens to kill U.S. reporter--Says He's a Mossad Agent--Al Fuqra Leader Arrested

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The group that claims it has kidnapped a Wall Street Journal reporter in Pakistan has sent e-mail to news organisations threatening to kill him within 24 hours unless the U.S. government released Pakistani prisoners held in the Afghan war.

The e-mail, sent to The Wall Street Journal, CNN and The New York Times, among others, accused reporter Daniel Pearl of being a spy for Israel. It also warned other U.S. journalists in Pakistan to leave the country within three days.

"We have interrogated Mr. D. Pearl and have come to the conclusion that contrary to what we thought earlier, he is not working for the CIA," said the statement, according to CNN.

"In fact, he is working for (Israel's) Mossad, therefore we will execute him within 24 hours unless America fulfills our demands."

It was not immediately clear when the 24-hour deadline would lapse. An earlier e-mail identified the previously unknown group as "The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty." "We have seen the latest communication from the people claiming to hold Danny Pearl," The Wall Street Journal said in a statement.

"Mr. Pearl, a U.S. citizen born in the U.S. and a working journalist all of his adult life, is not an agent of any government or agency. He is a reporter for us -- nothing more or less. He cannot affect the policy of the U.S. or Pakistani government. Nor can we."

Pearl, 38, was working on a story about alleged shoe-bomber Richard Reid, who is being detained in the United States ahead of trial on charges he tried to blow up an airliner. In the Pakistan capital Islamabad, police said on Wednesday they had detained the leader of a radical Islamic group in connection with the kidnapping of Pearl, who went missing in the southern city of Karachi a week ago. Police said they arrested Mubarak Ali Gilani, leader of Jamaat al-Fuqra and considered him a prime suspect in the case.

Investigators have said Pearl, who is based in Bombay, India, met Gilani before he disappeared and police have detained and questioned a number of people close to the religious leader and al-Fuqra.

Reid allegedly travelled to Pakistan shortly before being caught on a plane in December while trying to detonate his explosive-laden sneakers. The latest e-mail also called on U.S. journalists to leave Pakistan.

"We warn all American journalists working in Pakistan that there are many in their ranks spying on Pakistan under the journalist cover, therefore we give all American journalists three days to get out of Pakistan. Anyone remaining after will be targeted."

New York Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said the statement was "something we take very seriously" because the newspaper had several reporters covering the Afghan war.

Muslims of the Americas: In Their Own Words

Muslims of the Americas (MOA) is a virulently anti-Semitic, Islamic extremist group with ties to Al-Fuqra, a terrorist organization that has carried out firebombings and murders in the United States. MOA claims to have offices in six U.S. cities and Toronto and maintains secluded residential communities in New York, Virginia and California. The group's Web site and e-mails have featured writings by notorious anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers, including Michael Hoffman and former Klansman David Duke.

MOA was founded and is led by the radical Pakistani cleric El Sheikh Sayyid Mubarik Ali Jilani (commonly known as Sheikh Jilani or Sheikh Gilani). Based in Lahore, Pakistan, Jilani established MOA in 1980, after arriving in the United States for the first time. In the 1980s, Jilani, who claims to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, actively recruited American Muslims to fight against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. MOA claims to have offices in six U.S. cities and Toronto, and it maintains secluded residential communities in New York, Virginia, California, and possibly other states. The group also runs a Web site and an e-mail mailing list.

The available evidence strongly suggests that MOA has served as a corporate front for another group founded by Sheik Jilani, the terrorist organization Al-Fuqra, which has committed firebombings and murders on U.S. soil. Both Sheikh Jilani and MOA officials deny that Al-Fuqra even exists, and MOA claims to be a "peaceful" group. Though relatively few members of MOA have been arrested for criminal activity, two residents of the MOA community in Virginia were recently arrested for firearms violations, and a resident of the MOA community in California was recently arrested for the murder of a Sheriff's Deputy.

Muslims of the Americas: In Their Own Words

Here are examples of anti-Semitic, anti-Christian,anti-American, and homophobic statements made by MOA, as well as comments that promote violence:

"Jews are an example of human Satans. This is why Jews are the founders of Satan worship and Masonic lodges, and are now trying to take over the entire globe in which the global religion is to be Satanism….In the US there are now thousands of temples where Satan is worshipped. This Satanism has now become the ultimate tool in the hands of Zionists. "

...see more at link.

Jamaat ul-Fuqra

From: Patterns of Global Terrorism, 1999. United States Department of State, April 2000.

Comments on the content of the material should be sent to the U.S. Department of State

---------------------------------------------------------

Description

Islamic sect that seeks to purify Islam through violence. Led by Pakistani cleric Shaykh Mubarik Ali Gilani, who established the organization in the early 1980s. Gilani now resides in Pakistan, but most cells are located in North America and the Caribbean. Members have purchased isolated rural compounds in North America to live communally, practice their faith, and insulate themselves from Western culture.

Activities

Fuqra members have attacked a variety of targets that they view as enemies of Islam, including Muslims they regard as heretics and Hindus. Attacks during the 1980s included assassinations and firebombings across the United States. Fuqra members in the United States have been convicted of crimes, including murder and fraud.

Strength

Unknown.

Location/Area of Operation

North America, Pakistan.

External Aid

None.

Shermy, I vaguely remember someone from al Fuqra being sentenced in the US for something--it may have been a weapons charge--just recently. I also came across something about the group in Colorado.

This is all I could find on a google search on "Fuqra":

http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/news1/an011222-07.html

Terror Probe Leads To Rural Va. Hamlet

AP, Dec. 21, 2001

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ []

[Story no longer online? Read this]

More News

RED HOUSE, Va. (AP) - Except for a metallic green ''Muslims of America'' sign at the entrance, there's little to distinguish the cluster of trailer homes near a country crossroads.

Yet federal authorities say the fenced compound was the home of a terrorist cell - not connected to the Sept. 11 attacks but instead to al-Fuqra, an obscure Muslim sect with a history of violence in the United States.

The path of federal authorities' investigation of the group shows how the response to any hint of terrorist activity has shifted from watchful waiting to quick arrest and prosecution.

Before Sept. 11, the compound, which houses about 20 families, had been under surveillance for three years because of suspicion that residents were stockpiling machine guns, said Thomas Gallagher, a special agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

A week after the attacks on New York and Washington, two residents of the compound were charged with purchasing pistols illegally. Vincente Rafael Pierre, 45, and his wife, Traci Elaine Upshur, 37, were both convicted. A third resident, Bilal Adullah Ben Benu, 27, faces charges including illegally transporting ammunition for AK-47 automatic rifles.

The story is full of unanswered questions, beyond the central question of why alleged terrorists would set up housekeeping in an isolated hamlet in the flat farm country of central Virginia.

Residents of the compound, mostly black Muslims, will say little beyond proclaiming their innocence and complaining that they are victims of religious and racial prejudice.

Pierre said in court that al-Fuqra was a ''phantom, nonexistent organization.''

Prosecutors decline to say what kind of terrorist activity they suspect. Instead they cite al-Fuqra's history and warn that some of the compound's residents are dangerous.

Al-Fuqra, which means ''the impoverished'' in Arabic, was founded in Brooklyn, N.Y., 20 years ago by a Pakistani cleric, Shaykh Mubarik Ali Gilani. The group ''seeks to Islamism', CAPTION, 'Additional Information', SNAPX, '15', STICKY, TIMEOUT, '6000');">purify Islam through violence,'' according to a 1998 State Department report. Its members are suspected in at least 17 bombings and 12 murders, Gallagher said.

In 1992, Colorado's attorney general charged al-Fuqra members in Buena Vista, Colo., with firebombing a Hare Krishna temple in 1984 and conspiracy to murder a Muslim cleric in 1990. The cleric, Sheik Rashad Khalifa of Tucson, Ariz., was killed after receiving death threats over his interpretation of the Quran.

[...]

Members of the group also bilked the state of more than $355,000 through false workers compensation claims, and used the money to buy a 100-acre mountain compound in Buena Vista, Colo., Wamsley said. [...]

Pierre's lawyer, Thomas Wray, said his client was wrongly swept up in the rush to capture potential terrorists.

''It bothers me that they'd go after someone when their evidence wasn't sufficient,'' Wray said.

Pierre said al-Fuqra is ''just a figment of someone's imagination due to their ignorance of the Arabic language or perhaps due to their hate or prejudice'' toward Islam. [...]

''There's a general chill in the Muslim community right now,'' said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an Islamic advocacy group based in Washington.

Hooper said Muslims feel threatened when hundreds of people have been detained and police view entire communities as suspects instead of focusing on individual crimes.

But Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney in Washington, said cases such as that of al-Fuqra show the importance of good surveillance of potential terrorists.

''These incidents indicate there are members of terrorist cells in America still,'' diGenova said.

[...more...] [Need the full story? Read this]

here's a bit more about al Fuqra:

http://www.ago.state.co.us/Reports/fuqra.stm

INFORMATION REGARDING COLORADO'S INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION OF MEMBERS OF JAMAAT UL FUQRA

Beginning in the late 1980s, the Colorado Attorney General's Office successfully prosecuted members of a fundamentalist Sufi-militant Islamic sect known as "JAMAAT UL FUQRA". Five FUQRA members were ultimately prosecuted between 1993 and 1994.

"FUQRA" is an Arabic word, which translates most accurately as "the impoverished". The sect advocates the purification of the Islamic religion by means of force and violence. Sheikh Mubarik Ali Jilani Hasmi, who is known by many other aliases, and who also calls himself the sixth Sultan Ul Faqr, originated this group in Pakistan. In addition to being suspected of committing numerous acts of domestic terrorism, FUQRA members in the United States have been suspected of committing fraud against various governmental entitlement programs in an effort to financially support their activities.

Colorado's investigation indicated that the United States FUQRA movement was composed of approximately 30 different 'Jamaats' or communities, somewhat mobile in nature. Most of these 'Jamaats' are believed to currently exist today, along with what investigators deemed to be several 'covert paramilitary training compounds' -- one of which had been located in a remote mountainous area near Buena Vista, Colorado prior to Colorado's prosecutions in the mid-1990s. The corresponding FUQRA 'Jamaat' to the Buena Vista compound was located in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Colorado's investigation of FUQRA was initiated in 1989 when Colorado Springs Police Department detectives, initially investigating a series of burglaries, were contacted by the owner of a storage locker site and were told about a locker of, what appeared to be, abandoned property.

In September 1989, detectives executed a search warrant of the storage locker upon suspicion of illegal explosives. The search of the locker disclosed numerous items believed to belong to the FUQRA sect then residing in that area. Several explosive components-- thirty to forty pounds of explosives, three large pipe bombs, a number of smaller improvised explosive devices, shape charges, ten handguns-- some with obliterated serial numbers-- silencers in various stages of manufacture, military training manuals, reloading equipment, bomb-making instructions, and numerous FUQRA-related publications were located in this storage area. Titles of some of the publications included "Guerilla Warfare", "Counter Guerilla Operations", "Understanding Amateur Radio", and "Fair Weather Flying," and "Basic Blueprint Reading and Sketching." Several silhouettes for firearms target practice were also discovered, including one with the words "FBI Anti-terrorist team" written on the target's torso bullseye.

Of great interest to law enforcement officials were documents concerning potential 'targets' for destruction and murder in the Los Angeles, Tucson, and Denver areas, including surveillance-type photographs, maps with hand-drawn overlays, notes, etc., concerning these targets. In addition, references to Buckley Air National Guard Base, Rocky Mountain Arsenal, the Air Force Academy, and electrical facilities in Colorado, and Warren Air Force Base, and two Wyoming National Guard armories in Wyoming were found. A somewhat detailed description of a firebombing attack on what is believed to have been the Hare Krishna Temple in Denver was also discovered. An attack, as described in these writings, did, in fact, take place in Denver in August 1984, causing an estimated $200,000 in damage. Investigation by Denver authorities at that time revealed that a Hare Krishna Temple in Philadelphia, where FUQRA activity also had been noted, was firebombed in a similar fashion.

Among the many documents found in the Colorado Springs' storage locker were numerous blank birth certificates; blank social security cards; several sets of Colorado drivers' licenses, each containing a picture of the same individual, but each with a different identity; and many underground press publications concerning the assembly of phony identification -- to be reproduced in a manner to "withstand even close government scrutiny".

Finally, the search disclosed a number of workers' compensation claims, which ultimately led to a full-scale fraud investigation being conducted by the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment in coordination with the Colorado Attorney General's Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Joint Terrorist Task Force.

This investigation revealed that Colorado Springs FUQRA members had defrauded the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment of approximately $350,000 dollars between September 1984 and January 1992. The mobility and multiple addresses and identities of the various FUQRA members posed a significant challenge to early detection and normal prevention of the fraud. As a result of the two-year investigation, five FUQRA members were indicted by the statewide grand jury in September 1992 on racketeering charges involving theft, mail fraud, and forgery. Six months after the indictments, further racketeering charges, including theft of rental property, conspiracy to commit murder and arson (the Denver Hare Krishna Temple), were also filed against the five individuals and a sixth person -- all FUQRA members. Some of the fraudulently obtained workers' compensation funds were traced directly to payments for a parcel of land near Buena Vista used by the group as a residence compound and training site.

One of the FUQRA defendants convicted is James D. Williams. After his conviction in 1993 for conspiracy to commit first degree murder, racketeering, and forgery, Williams fled and remained a fugitive until being apprehended in Virginia in August 2000. He was returned to Colorado and sentenced this past March to 69 years in prison. From at least the middle 1980's through 1990, Williams was a leader of a Colorado FUQRA.

The conviction for conspiracy to commit first degree murder referred to a comprehensive written plan for the murder of a Tucson, Arizona Muslim cleric, Rashad Khalifa. Khalifa was murdered in January 1990 in a manner that was remarkably similar to the written plan.

It is believed the activities of UL FUQRA across the nation continue. Just recently the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (BATF) arrested one of the former Colorado defendants and FUQRA member, Vincente Rafael Pierre, in Virginia on alleged ammunition violations. In California, a FUQRA member was arrested on the suspected murder of a Fresno County Deputy Sheriff this last August. In addition, FUQRA operates something called the Quranic Open University in Los Angeles, which has received over $1.5 million dollars over the course of the last two years in charter school funding. This entity is also located in New York City and Philadelphia. There are believed to be active UL FUQRA training compounds still existing in New York, Michigan, South Carolina, California, and perhaps other states.

FUQRA or its members have been investigated for alleged terrorist acts including murder and arson in New York, Detroit, Philadelphia, Toronto, Denver, Los Angeles and Tucson. UL FUQRA is suspected of more than thirteen firebombings and, at least, as many murders within the United States.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.