Jamaat ul Fuqra/Islamberg Update

Pamala Geller over at Atlas Shrugs covered Jamaat ul Fuqra, in a long and extensive post, over a week ago, concentrating mostly on the Hancock, New York (Islamberg) location. I covered Islamberg back when I had first heard of it in early June, here, here, here, and here.

Some information that was new to me:

• Jamaat ul-Fuqra has close ties to al-Qaeda. In December 1993, Sheikh Mubarek Ali Gilani, the founder of ul-Fuqra, was an honored guest at an international gathering of Islamic terrorists at the residence of Hassan al-Turabi in Khartoum. At the gathering, Sheikh Gilani and Osama bin Laden were caught on film chanting, “Down, down with the USA!” “Down, down with the CIA,” and “Death to the Jews.” The film now remains in the “Alec File” – – the CIA dossier on bin Laden.
• Members of the group have been arrested for trafficking in firearms, including AK-45s.A recent report prepared by the Center for Policing Terrorism maintains that Jamaat ul-Fuqra “may be the best positioned group to launch an attack on the United States, or, more likely, help al-Qaeda to do so.”
• Since the time of its establishment at a radical mosque in Brooklyn, New York, Jamaat ul-Fuqra has been responsible for more terror attacks on America soil (30 and counting) than all the other terrorist groups combined. It has spawned and sponsored assassinations, kidnappings, mass murder, grand theft and fraud.  Some noted associates of Jamaat ul-Fuqra include Richard Reid, the Shoe bomber and John Allen Muhammed, the Beltway sniper.
• Members of the group, including Clement Rodney Hampton-El took part in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Others, such as Zacarias Moussaowi and Melvin Lattimore, played key roles in the attacks of 9/11.

Islamberg is the location for the International Quranic Open University, where students learn that their “formost duty” is to “wage jihad” against “their enemies”.

Their training manuals are written by Sheikh Gilani himself, and boast lively jingles like this one:

“Come join my troops and army,”
Says our Sheikh Gilani .
“Prepare to sacrifice your head.
“A true believer is never dead.
“Say ‘Victory is in the air,’
“The kafir’s blood will not be spared.”

In “Pillar of Lies,” the standard text at the school, Gilani writes that the 9/11 attack was an elaborate plot hatched by Zionists to launch the US invasion of Muslim lands.

I’ve seen some of the “Pillar of Lies” stuff myself, on one of their websites, before they took it down. Freaky stuff. Sadly, not all that different from what you’d see in a DU, or Kos post, though.

In a recruitment video for The International Open Islamic University, Gilani boosts: “We give [students] specialized training in guerilla warfare. We are at present establishing training camps. You can easily reach us at Open Quranic offices in upstate New York or in Canada or in South Carolina or in Pakistan.” Before becoming a student at the university or a citizen of Islamberg, recruits and students are compelled to sign an oath that read: “I shall always hear and obey, and whenever given the command, I shall readily fight for Allah’s sake.” They are also obliged to contribute 70% of their welfare checks and other sources of income to Muslims of the Americas, Inc.
Following the basic training at the compounds and their reception of a degree, the best and the brightest of the students continue to be shipped off to Pakistan for advance training in terrorist tactics.

There’s much much more at Atlas Shrugs, including pictures of the compound, I’d not before seen.