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Shooter Boyz could be involved with al-Fuqra...
Mike sent me this, this morning. Caused me to sit right up and take notice, too...Federal authorities are investigating whether accused snipers John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo had ties to a growing sect of militant American Muslims committed to waging holy war against the United States. Law-enforcement authorities yesterday said investigators want to know whether the suspects â now awaiting separate murder trials in Virginia â were involved with Jamaat al-Fuqra, a militant Muslim group with documented ties to international terrorism that has been linked to 13 slayings and 17 firebombings in the United States and Canada. Hmmmm... Hadn't been thinking about them much lately, not since the Pearl case... The al-Fuqra network, through an offshoot group known as the Muslims of America, has established a patchwork of more than two dozen communes from New York to California, including a sizable retreat in Red House, Va., 30 miles south of Lynchburg, where as many as 200 people live in trailers in a guarded community. FBI agents assigned to the sniper investigation task force were in Red House last week, seeking information on whether Mr. Muhammad and Mr. Malvo had ties to that community or whether they had used the site as a hide-out during a 23-day killing spree in Virginia, Maryland and the District that left 10 persons dead and three others wounded. Uhhh... Yeah. (He said, sheepishly.) That'd be a good thing to know, wouldn't it? Charlotte County Sheriff Thomas D. Jones, whose jurisdiction includes Red House, said that while FBI agents did not establish any specific link with the southern Virginia commune, agents told him "there had been a connection at a similar community in Georgia." Bingo. Hope they're working the hell out of the Georgia connection... One law-enforcement official noted yesterday that the sniper killings began Oct. 2 â the anniversary of the 1995 conviction of World Trade Center bombing ringleader Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman and others, including members of al-Fuqra. I'd tend to discount that. Something happened every day of the year. Look hard enough and you'll find what it was... "There are a series of coincidences here involving Mr. Muhammad and al-Fuqra that have to be followed," said the official. "Even if the investigation leads nowhere, it would be negligent not to pursue every angle." That's the better reason. Coincidences sometimes do happen. The majority of times, though, there's a relationship. As many as 3,000 al-Fuqra members are believed to live in the Muslim communes across the country, some of which have been identified by authorities as having shooting ranges. The State Department said al-Fuqra, or the "the impoverished," seeks to purify Islam through violence. Many of the group's members are recruited out of prison, authorities said, adding that secrecy is the hallmark of the sect and that members are trained, among other things, in the use of aliases. Very Islamic. And rooting through the jailhouses, they'll get just the kind of people they want... Al-Fuqra communes have been established to follow the teachings of Sheik Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, a Pakistani cleric who founded the tax-exempt Muslims of America sect in 1980. Sheik Gilani left the United States for Lahore, Pakistan, in 1993, shortly after the first attack by Muslim terrorists on the World Trade Center. The organization also is suspected of having ties to Richard C. Reid, the British man accused of trying to use explosives in his shoes to blow up a Paris-to-Miami jetliner Dec. 22. Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was on the way to meet Sheik Gilani in Pakistan when he was kidnapped and later killed. Mr. Pearl was investigating accusations that Reid was one of Sheik Gilani's followers. Sheik Gilani was not charged in the Pearl death. Gilani and Fuqra keep popping up. The first time he popped up, it might have been a coincidence. Now I think he's out of the coincidence category and the Feds should be working the problem pretty seriously. There was a new report in February that he was going to be extradited to the U.S. I wonder if that ever happened? Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2002-11-13 |
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