Posted on 08/09/2002 12:41:12 AM PDT by sarcasm
A former Seattle man's alleged attempt to profit from a plan to build terrorist training camps in the United States apparently landed members of his family and his mosque in the middle of a global terrorism investigation.
After the effort failed, James Ujaama reportedly had to fend off death threats from one of two al-Qaida operatives who arrived expecting to conduct training exercises at a ranch in the Oregon desert, only to discover there were no recruits waiting to join the jihad, or holy war.
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Now, three years later, the aborted scheme to help advance the cause of Islamic radicals -- while also making a buck -- is a key element in an FBI investigation aimed at proving that London cleric Abu Hamza al Masri recruited al-Qaida members and supported international terrorism.
The Egyptian-born Abu Hamza is wanted in Yemen on terrorism charges and the U.S. Treasury Department has frozen his assets in this country. Hamza's London mosque had been visited by Zacarias Moussaoui, who was charged in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, and by others with terrorist connections.
The investigation, rooted in Western Washington, became public last month. At its center is Ujaama, a Seattle businessman, Web site designer and self-styled entrepreneur now in custody in Virginia, where he is expected to be called before a federal grand jury. Ujaama has not been charged with any crime but has been held as a material witness since he was arrested in a police raid in Denver July 22.
Federal officials will say little about the investigation, or its targets. However, a Muslim who was living on the ranch near Bly, Ore., when Abu Hamza's emissaries from Afghanistan visited in 1999, has for the first time detailed the links between the Seattle mosque, a ramshackle ranch and the London cleric.
The Muslim, who outlined the events for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, asked for anonymity out of fear of reprisals from those under investigation and from federal law enforcement officials.
"Everyone is harassing me ... but I'm not going to lie about anything just to cover their butts," the Muslim said. "If they just told the truth it would be much better."
The Muslim's account was confirmed by other P-I sources, and is consistent with information gathered by The Associated Press, The Sunday Times in London and other news organizations, which was used for this article.
Ivan Rule, a sheepherder, was living alone at the ranch in 1999 when he met Ayat Hakimah, an American Muslim and avid horsewoman. When they decided to marry, they called Semi Osman, former imam of the now-defunct Dar us Salaam mosque in Seattle's Central District.
Hakimah was a friend of Osman's wife, Angelica. Soon, the Osmans and their young daughter were living rent-free at the ranch, drawn there by wide open spaces where they could keep horses and raise sheep.
Rule also had assured Osman, a mechanic, he could easily find work in Bly. That promise never panned out. Shortly before the snow fell, Rule was gone -- off to California to graze his sheep.
He cannot be located for comment, but his son, Dona, described his father as having been "a Christian all his life" until he met Hakimah.
"He was studying to be a Muslim for a while," Dona Rule said, "but changed his mind after he met Semi and the bunch. All I know is he told me these people are very wicked, and that he didn't want anything to do with them."
The Osman family's 18-week sojourn at the ranch, which ended in early February 2000, was marked by visits from two distinctly different groups of Muslims.
Not long after Rule's departure, 10 to 15 Dar us Salaam members arrived at the ranch with a large arsenal.
"I thought they would only use rifles, but they were pulling out AK-47s, pistols and other assault rifles, enough for everybody and then some," the Muslim said. "I thought it was unusual and scary, but afterward, I heard people shooting these types of guns a lot in Oregon. It was something common in the area."
But while the arms were impressive, the loosely organized shooting drills were almost comical. The men propped up a headless deer mannequin, formed a line and took turns blasting it at close range. Then, after someone suggested they try from a greater distance, they backed up and again blazed away.
Next came horseback riding. The next day, the men left.
Two weeks later they returned for a similar outing.
The Muslim said both parties included James and Mustafa Ujaama, brothers from Seattle who did not stand out as leaders in the group. Mustafa Ujaama said last night that he had only visited the camp once.
The men from Seattle boasted about how they would strike out against American foreign policy, but that talk was dismissed as empty bluster.
"They all say they want to blow something up ... then they try to outdo each other and say they are going to blow up something bigger," the Muslim said.
The same could not be said for Oussama Kassir, a Lebanese who is a Swedish citizen, and Haroon Aswat, an Asian Indian from Britain, who arrived in early December.
The men, hardened trainers for the jihad, had been traveling from Afghanistan, expecting to find many American recruits to train as terrorists.
"As I got to know them, I took them more seriously," the Muslim said.
Both said they were bodyguards for Abu Hamza, whom they sometimes called on the telephone.
They were furious when they found that conditions in Bly were much different than they had been led to believe. James Ujaama had sent faxes to Abu Hamza, describing the ranch as an ideal place to train for jihad.
The men instead found the Osmans living in a dilapidated trailer.
"It was the nicest one there, and we were stepping through the floor all winter; the other trailers were even worse," the Muslim said.
As bad as the living conditions were, the trainers were furious to find themselves jobless.
In the two months that the drill masters spent at the camp, not a single trainee arrived.
"The guys from Seattle didn't want to train, they wanted to ride horses and shoot," the Muslim said. "The Lebanese guy said he was going to kill (James), that's when we knew he was kind of nuts.
"We were running out of food, he kept bringing in rabbits, quail and robins they shot ... the Lebanese guy could shoot really well."
James Ujaama, meanwhile, left to explore ways to profit from the idea that he had found a U.S. retreat for terror training.
The Muslim said Ujaama was interested in arranging two-week adventures to jihad training camps at undisclosed locations in the United States and wanted to sell shares of the proposed Oregon training camp to stakeholders in Britain.
The Muslim said Hakimah apparently had a falling out with Ujaama when she discovered how much he intended to profit from sales in England of the 100 shares of the ranch they intended to issue. She was to receive 2,000 British pounds per share, but learned that Ujaama planned to charge 16,000 pounds per share and keep the difference.
Ujaama's plans fell apart when Abu Hamza realized that there was no reason to think the camp would attract recruits. The trainers left the ranch in January, and the Osmans moved out the following month.
At the time, local police had taken note of the activities at the Oregon ranch as part of a pre-millennium terror assessment. But federal authorities renewed and expanded their interest almost immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks.
In June, Osman, 32, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Seattle on charges of possessing a handgun with the serial number removed, and of fraudulently attempting to obtain U.S. citizenship. The immigration charge was dropped recently after Osman agreed to a plea agreement that has been sealed until his Oct. 25 sentencing hearing.
Events at the ranch apparently did little to further terrorist aims of al-Qaida or to feed recruits into the jihad in Afghanistan but are now helping investigators build a case against Abu Hamza.
Charles Mandigo, special agent in charge of the Seattle FBI office, declined comment on the case, saying that the investigation is ongoing.
However, the Bly ranch was not Abu Hamza's only effort to start training camps in the United States, or James Ujaama's only possible link to such camps.
Officials have confirmed that James Ujaama helped design a now-defunct Internet site for a British organization, Sakina Security Services, that tried to attract clients for the "Ultimate Jihad Challenge."
British authorities have charged the company, and its owner, Sulayman Bilal Zain-ul-abidin, with seeking to "assist or prepare for" terrorism.
Mustafa Ujaama said his brother has denied any involvement with the Jihad Challenge.
U.S. investigators are searching for links between Sakina and the failed plan to use a legitimate firearms training school in Marion, Ala., for terrorist training.
The British operator of the camp, Mark Yates, said he has given British authorities information about a man who may have tried to use his Alabama camp for nefarious purposes.
Zain-ul-abidin was arrested in England on Oct. 1. According to prosecutors, Zain-ul-abidin told them he had an associate in Alabama.
The man's London lawyer said her client, a British citizen who adopted a Muslim name, is accused of altering Yates' promotional materials to offer terrorism training through the "Ultimate Jihad Challenge," according to reports.
The lawyer, Muddassar Arani, has denied her client has broken laws.
Yates, a former British Army officer who owns U.S. and British companies that train bodyguards and police, told officials that Zain-ul-abidin, under the name Frank Etim, attended three of his training programs in Wales in 1996.
According to The Sunday Times in London, agents from MI5, Britain's domestic intelligence service, will soon visit the Oregon ranch and the Alabama camp.
The possible ties to the Marion camp only became apparent after Zain-ul-abidin was arrested. It is not clear how many recruits may have used the Alabama camp.
Prosecutors reportedly may try to prove that Zain-ul-abidin knew a British Muslim security guard who traveled to Alabama to train at the camp.
A federal prosecutor in Alabama said he was reluctant to gauge the importance of the possible terrorist connections to the Marion camp -- and their links to the Bly camp or any suspects from the Pacific Northwest.
"I think it's premature to assess at this point what may or may not be there," said Richard Moore, anti-terrorism coordinator for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Mobile, Ala.
"There are still dots to connect."
"We were running out of food, he kept bringing in rabbits, quail and robins they shot ... the Lebanese guy could shoot really well."
Well, even if they get a liberal judge who will overlook evreything else they were involved in, someone is going to be in BIG trouble for violating the migratory species act.
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