Preparing for Jihad ...in Alabama

ABCnews.com ^ | 07/25/02 | Brian Ross

[Thane_Banquo]

Preparing for Jihad ? in Alabama
Islamic Militant Training Camp Allegedly Operating in Alabama

July 25 ? A training camp linked to Islamic militants has been operating in Alabama, and European law enforcement officials believe Muslim extremists were using it to prepare for a holy war.

British authorities also thought that militants from overseas were training in the United States to take advantage of America's gun laws, sources told ABCNEWS. The looming question for law enforcement is whether there is a connection between the camp and the al Qaeda terror network.

An investigation by Britain's Scotland Yard led to the discovery of the camp in Marion, Ala. The facility is called "Ground Zero USA."

Bullet-riddled police cars and a school bus with mannequin targets are scattered around the property. Inside a huge shed is an equally macabre scene ? shot-up mannequins, male and female, in domestic settings, some with red, blood-like stains on them.

Ground Zero's operators promised state-of-the-art, world-class training in automatic weapons, urban warfare, SWAT tactics and martial arts, supposedly to fight terror attacks.

Marion Police Chief Tony Buford said he became suspicious of the use of police cars and buses as targets.

"It was rumored that the camp here was used as training site for possible people that were sent here to do bodily harm to Americans," Buford told ABCNEWS.

Web Site Provides Terror Link

The suspected terror ties of the Alabama camp were unknown until after Sept. 11, when officials in London arrested an accused al Qaeda supporter, Zain-ul-Albidin

He is charged with operation of a Web site, under the name of Sakina Security, allegedly recruiting Muslims for an Islamic jihad or holy war. He is now on trial in London.

The site, since taken down by British authorities, described what seemed to be the Alabama camp, including live-fire exercises at a state-of-the-art shooting range in the United States ? something that would not be legal in Britain.

"In the United States, it is not illegal for anyone to receive military training, high-grade military training," said Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside Al Qaeda.

The actual owners of camp, who are also British, say it was used primarily to train law enforcement personnel. Officials consider them unwitting accomplices. The camp owners declined to talk to ABCNEWS.

Scale of Secret Camps Unknown

It is not known how many holy war recruits came through the camp or when. But the FBI is now investigating a number of suspected training camps around the country.

"We know of a number of cases where Islamic terrorists came and training in this country in the early 1990s. It is likely that this scale of training is still continuing," Gunaratna said.

The most radical and belligerent of London's Islamic clerics, Abu Hamza, told ABCNEWS in a phone call that America's laws make such paramilitary training easy, "like a picnic."

British intelligence officials told ABCNEWS they are closely examining alleged ties between Hamza, who is said to have recruited alleged "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui, and Zain-ul-Albidin.

[Thane_Banquo]

This story is about Camp Ground Zero, but from July 25, long before the sniper problems began. Very interesting. John Mohammed a Muslim. Trained at a camp with ties to Al Qaeda. But I'm sure the "experts" will still tell us he's a right-wing gun nut and Bush voter.

[martin_fierro]

Islamabama?

[anniegetyourgun]

He is neither. Just what everyone was expecting....a couple of angry black Jamaican guys!

[Thane_Banquo]

As Neal Boortz calls it, Alabamistan.

[martin gibson]

Islamabama?

A+ and a gold star next to your name on the chart on the wall...

[OldFriend]

NY media making no mention of the Alabama terror training camp..........just focused on the Camden, NJ connection.

A sin of omission by the media......AGAIN.

[Thane_Banquo]

Check FOXnews. They're all over it. Interesting how the experts were so influenced by political correctness that they refused to make a connection to Islamic terrorism. They wanted to pin it on a white male all along because that is politically correct.

[Pharmboy]

I'm not so sure these guys were just angry Jamaican guys...we need to see what develops. I would love to know Mohammed's contacts and travels in the past year--then we'll know. I do not think the money/extortion was the angle.

If they were just "angry black males," why shoot so many black people? I think they wanted all to think that it was an angry white male and to foment race war...similar to some of the white racialist thinking over the years.

[Man of the Right]

It's time for these camps to be put out of business. If Muhammad trained at Camp Ground Zero, there won't be enough money in the world to satisfy judgments from the civil cases that will be filed in Md., Va. & D.C.

[Jerrybob]

I'm so relieved it isn't a "white male". That's all we would have heard -- a million times. But of course we won't hear "black male" once.

[anniegetyourgun]

It's not a race thing, and it's not a religion thing....it's a criminal thing. These are joy-riding, attention-seeking common criminals (who also like robbery, drugs, extortion and fraud).

[VaMarVet]

...take advantage of America's gun laws, sources told ABCNEWS.

Not the last we will see of this.

[Fifth Business]

Allah-bama

[Boss_Jim_Gettys]

"It's not a race thing, and it's not a religion thing..."

I disagree. There is nothing more of a race/religion thing than the Nation of Islam.

[anniegetyourgun]

Okay, I'll say it - their two angry black men on a crime rampage.

[TheLurkerX]

Watch them play down the terrorist angle. If he was there, then there are others around the country.

[OldFriend]

The 'experts' were ALL wrong........but that won't stop them from pontificating again.

[OldFriend]

I believe you are wrong on this one. It seems that they trained in an islamic terror camp. They were known to be sympathetic to the 9/11 hijackers.......

They may be criminals, but they had a focus for their hatred...AMERICA.

[Jerrybob]

You won't hear that on NBC, CBS, ABC or CNN.

[smiley]

Former Green Beret Major on Fox News this morning made an excellent, excellent observation as to why individuals such as the sniper are former military. Ever since the Clintons destroyed the military during their first six months in office, the military's hands have been tied as to "weeding out" undesirable individuals due to Political Correctness at the time. The military has had to exercise "tolerance" with all individuals who enter the military and this is the outcome of that Political Correctness. (This former Green Beret Major did not come out and nail Clinton directly, but one could draw that conclusion during his conversation).