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A Junior al Qaeda . . . By John J. Miller, NR national political reporter |
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Pakistani authorities have arrested Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani on charges related to the abduction of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who went missing more than a week ago while attempting to interview Gilani for a story about shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Pearl's captors have threatened to murder their hostage today if the United States does not release Pakistani prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.
There are a lot of Baptist churches along rural Virginia's Route 615, just south of Appomattox-"where America reunited," as the county welcome sign puts it-but there's only one Sheikh Gilani Lane. A gate and a guardhouse prevent the public from driving very far down it. What lies beyond, however, isn't a closed-off community of rich retirees. Instead, it's a trailer-park compound of black Muslims, or "The Muslims of America," according to a green billboard by the entrance, where an armed guard keeps a wary eye on the main road's traffic. Until recently, this was the home of Vicente Rafael Pierre, a 44-year-old Brooklyn native with a shadowy past and a dim future. He may never see this home again. Shortly after September 11, federal agents snared him in their roundup of crime suspects who have links to terrorist outfits. Nobody has accused Pierre of any direct connection to the atrocities in New York or elsewhere-he and his wife, Traci Upshur, were taken in on unrelated gun charges and convicted of them on November 30. Yet authorities have detailed Pierre's extensive ties to al Fuqra, a violent group of black Muslims whose members have been implicated in at least 17 bombings and 12 murders over the past twenty years. Pierre's Virginia compound, near the tiny crossroads hamlet of Red House, is believed to serve as an al Fuqra base. Pierre's story is compelling in its own right - anybody connected to al Fuqra is also connected to killers, bombers, and arsonists. During Pierre's detention hearing in October, Thomas P. Gallagher of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms said he and his colleagues were worried about the possibility of "another Waco situation" developing in rural Virginia. More unsettling is the potential for al Fuqra to wreak mayhem beyond its remote compound. |
ilani is the head of an international organization known as al Fuqra. The group was recently banned in Pakistan, but it also has an extensive network in the United States. NR's John J. Miller wrote about al Fuqra for the December 31 edition of the magazine, reprinted below.