Sheriffs sound off on Islamic terror camps in U.S.

JANUARY 21, 2015

Do locations inside America pose threat?
Submitted by: Veronica Coffin
By Leo Hohmann

Sheriff John Carter of Wayne County, Georgia, received a hot tip in February last year
that he remembers well.
The caller said he had reason to believe the Muslims of America, a mysterious Islamic
commune with cult-like devotion to a radical Pakistani sheikh, was building underground
bunkers on its land near the tiny town of Jesup.
He immediately paid a visit to the reclusive Muslim groups compound, where Mecca
Circle turns off of Oreo Road several miles north town. About 38 people live in the
commune, where women wear burqas and the men don the skullcap common among Sufi
Muslims.
We havent had a lot of crime out there. They have not been unfriendly or rude in any
way. They do want their privacy. It is a concern. Were monitoring them, and I believe
theyre monitored federally, although I dont know that for sure because theyre not going
to tell you, Carter told WND. But most of the concerns that bring us out there have come
from outside the county.

The sheriff has a file in his office about an inch thick titled Mecca Circle, filled with
articles and CDs about the clannish Muslim enclave that keeps an extremely low profile in
Wayne County.
And what about the report about those bunkers?
I personally went up there, February a year ago, because this person was saying they were
putting in bunkers, he said.
He inquired of the leader, a man named Kareem, who led him to a site where the ground
had been disturbed.
They were replacing a septic tank, Carter said.
Most police calls to the 22 MOA compounds nationwide have resulted in similar false
alarms, as residents are understandably upset when they find out they have a possible
jihadist training camp operating in their county, or even their state or region.
There has been a few crimes committed by MOA members in Wayne County, Carter said,
but nothing approaching an act of terrorism.
The only thing I can recall, and I was chief deputy for 16 years before I became sheriff,
was two of them did an armed robbery at a liquor store some years ago. We caught them
and they went to prison, Carter said. Theres eight trailers out there on Mecca Circle,
one vacant lot, a frame house and a mosque facing the east. I havent seen much more than
that.
The remote compound outside of Jesup is the smaller of two MOA encampments in
Georgia whose members swear allegiance to Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, the Pakistani
cleric and spiritual leader of Jamaat al-Fuqra. The groups U.S. headquarters, Muslims of
America, is in Hancock County, at the foot of the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York,
at a place called Islamberg.

At another compound in Red House, Virginia, the local sheriffs office says they have about
20 trailer homes and a mosque. Another large compound exists in York County, S.C., with
others in Michigan, Tennessee, California and other states.
The Virginia camp, in a remote area of Charlotte County, also happens to be the closest to
the Lynchburg office of Christian Action Network, an activist group led by Martin Mawyer
that produced the documentary film Homegrown Jihad. The film takes a critical look at
Muslims of America and Jamaat al-Fuqra. The networks film crew has visited the
compound in Virginia several times.
Maj. Donald Lacks of the Charlotte County Sheriffs Office told WND that the sheriff does
not consider MOA to be a threat and he doesnt take seriously the information put out by
Mawyer and others about the network of 22 jihadist training camps.
But the phone calls and visits from concerned Americans continue to occur intermittently,
mostly from folks outside Charlotte County, Lacks said. They often occur after an article
has been published, such as WNDs story last week about the MOA communes.
These people live there, they have their own mosque there. They dont bother us. Ive
gotten a couple calls this week from West Virginia where theyre reading on the Internet
what a militant place we have here and thats not what it is, Lacks said. Theyve been
here a good while, probably 10 to 15 years. Its not a city, its a residential area, probably
15 or 20 mobile homes there and a mosque. We go there all the time. It might be a civil
paper were serving or it might be to unlock a vehicle. Routine stuff.
Nosy people are the problem
Lacks said hes never been inside the mosque, but he has entered the commune.
I have an officer that lives within a mile and a half of that community. There are no
complaints. The only complaints I get are from people who read articles that are not true.
Were a rural county but we have residents living near there and have no complaints, he
continued. The biggest problem we have is people driving here from outside the area
being nosy, trying to find out what we have here. They give us more problems than the
Muslims.
Lacks had harsh words for the Christian Action Network and its investigative work.

Theyve been banned from here. They fly over and drop numerous pamphlets. One of
them got charged. I believe it was for littering. Theyve got it in their minds that these
people are militant and wanting to kill everybody, Lacks said. Well, thats not been our
experience here.
Mawyer stands by the accuracy of his 2012 book, Twilight of America, which he coauthored with Patti Pierucci, and their documentary film, Homegrown Jihad. He said
one of the groups members was charged with littering but the charge was quickly thrown
out of court.
When his film crew showed up at the compound in Red House they were greeted by hostile
Muslim of Americas members. The leader of the group confronted the crew as they exited
their car.
Leave, he said. Dont say another word. Leave, period. You understand?
As the crew drove off, the Muslim leader struck their car window with his cane (watch film
clip below).

We toured a lot of these camps and by and large all the camps have a pretty good working
relationship with the police department or the sheriff that is in the immediate area,
Mawyer told WND. Whenever weve tried to meet with any of these police agencies and
present our findings they wont let us in to show any of the evidence. Maybe its just to
keep their heads buried in the sand because they certainly dont approach this group with
any degree of seriousness.
He said local sheriffs refused to take a serious look at evidence indicating that MOA has its
roots in the jihadist ideology of its Pakistani leader and, according to Mawyers research, is
a ticking bomb ready to go off.

When Mawyer approached residents living near the encampments, he says he found plenty
of nervous neighbors. If you talk to the people that live there they will express a great deal

of fear of these people for the most part, although you always have some that will tell you
they have no problem with whats going on, he said. You can imagine how much more
heightened that fear would be if the local sheriff said they have a terrorist camp in their
county. So I think that is why the sheriffs are reluctant to criticize this group. Mawyer
also believes Gilani selected the remote, rural outposts for a reason. They know these are
small communities that dont have the resources to regularly monitor whats going on, he
said.
Group not on federal radar, at least not officially
In the 1990s, the U.S. State Department listed Jamaat al-Fuqra under other terrorist
organizations in a document called Patterns of Global Terrorism. That was after a raid
on a Colorado camp the turned up a stash of AK-47 assault rifles and pipe bombs that were
primed and ready to fire. More troubling, however, was a recruitment video captured in the
raid in which Sheikh Gilani boasts, We have an advanced training course in Islamic
military warfare. At some point around 1997 Gilani and his network of camps dropped off
the federal watch list. We did away with that section many years ago and only list the
groups that are designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, said Rhonda Shore, press
secretary for the State Departments Bureau of Counterterrorism, in an email to WND.
The administration of President Barack Obama has preferred to deal with domestic
terrorist threats in terms of more generic violent extremism, avoiding at all cost the term
Islamic or terrorist when describing incidents such as the Fort Hood shooting by Maj.
Nidal Hason that claimed 13 lives. That incident, like others, have been designated as
work place violence. The White House announced last week it will now move forward
with plans to host a previously delayed summit on violent extremism on Feb. 18. While
the federal government treads gingerly through the weeds of Islamic radicals, it has
expressed no such reticence in calling out radical right wing extremists such as pro-life
people and disgruntled veterans, citing them in a 2009 report as potential terrorists. This
trend has its roots in the federal siege of the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, Texas,
during the Clinton administration in 1993, and the FBIs fatal shooting a year earlier of
Randy Weavers wife, son and dog at Ruby Ridge under President George H.W. Bush. The
White House later pulled the 2009 report following a strong backlash from conservatives in
Congress. Frank Spano, executive director of the Counter Terrorism Institute, said in a
2013 interview with WUSA9, a CBS affiliate in Washington, D.C., that the differences in
the federal governments approach to right wing extremism and Islamic extremism are

stark. Its almost to the point now where we buy their story upfront: Oh, were just a
group of individuals, like-minded, who choose to live together and defend ourselves,
Spano said. Well, that was the same case with the Branch Davidians at Waco. Spano said
that outlook is dangerous. Thats the terrorist next door, he said. Thats where the
U.S. really needs to reconsider how we address these organizations.

A known jihadist organization

Because Jamaat al-Fuqra and Muslims of America are not on the State Departments
foreign terrorist list, state and local law enforcement have less freedom to monitor them,
said Clare Lopez, vice president of research and analysis for the Center for Security
Policyin Washington, D.C. I dont know if Jamaat al-Fuqra has ties to al-Qaida, but they
are known to be a jihadist organization, Lopez said. Theyre definitely jihadist in their
ideology, and whats concerning is they are in the U.S. Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel
Pearl was investigating Jamaat al-Fuqra in 2002 and was on his way to interview Gilani in
Pakistan when he was kidnapped and beheaded. And the one who did the beheading was
Khalid Sheikh Muhammad (the al-Qaida operative considered the architect of the 9/11
attacks), Lopez said. A lot of these groups are not formally connected. But they are
jihadist and any group with a jihadi ideology is linked by Islam. Sometimes they do
cooperate across organizational structures. Iran helps fund Hamas, for instance, even
though Iran is Shiite and Hamas is Sunni Muslim. Its the fundamental ideology that
binds them even when the sectarian differences might divide them, Lopez said. All of
Islamic doctrine divides the world into Dar al-Islam and the Dar al-Harb, and its the Dar
al-Harb that becomes the target either through conquest or through civilizational jihad
so they do cooperate against the enemy, which is us. Three criteria must be met for a
group to get placed on the State Departments foreign terrorist list: The group must be
foreign based, it must have committed violent acts, and it must be deemed a nationalsecurity threat. The State Department reviews its list every two years. The Center for
Security Policy released a study Jan. 16 that outlines a new strategy Lopez says would
provide a more systematic and thorough assessment of the global jihadist threat, both at
home and abroad.

Sleeper cells waiting to wake up?

A group like Jamaat al-Fuqra could be a sleeper cell that lies dormant for years, only to be
activated one day by its leader, analysts such as Lopez and Spano surmise. It has not
carried out any organized acts of violence for more than a decade. Its troubling, because
weve got this network of dozens of encampments across the U.S. and of course its not like
the no-go zones in Europe because these are out in the countryside and neighbors report
that they have heard gunfire inside the encampments but gun ownership in America is
legal, Lopez said. So you would need a warrant, probable cause, all these things. Its just
been difficult for law enforcement. Even if a local sheriff wanted to thoroughly investigate
MOA, there is no legal basis for doing so because they operate on private property and
have separated themselves from society under the premise that they are practicing their
religion. That is pretty clever of the group, Lopez said. Our Jan. 16 report is a national
strategy to defeat the global jihad movement, recognizing it is not only a religion, because a
religion is pietistic. It involves worship of a deity, maybe has a diet, rules for living, and
thats completely covered by the First Amendment and if that was all Islam was then we
wouldnt be having this conversation. Islam also has its own legal system, shariah law,
which Lopez said could be seen as a violation of Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution. So we
have to stop talking about it as a religion only. It is a totalitarian political system and
supremacist in nature, and as part of the belief system itself obligates Muslims to
conquest, she said. Now, happily, a big percentage of Muslims dont want anything to do
with that. Lopez cites a 2013 Pew Research survey of the Muslim world, which includes
1.6 billion adherents. In this survey, a surprising 19 percent of U.S. Muslims did not agree
that suicide bombings were never justified. Even if a majority of the 1.6 billion never pick
up a gun or a bomb they still go to mosque and still make donations, and one-eighth of the
donation goes to jihad. Thats according to the law of Islam. Theyre supporting it, theyre
perpetrating it, Lopez said. So its not just the ones that pick up the guns and the bombs.
Its every single parent that allows them to go to an Islamic school. I can understand why
people dont want to take that on. It seems pretty daunting. But if one-fifth of worlds
population is Muslim think of the other side, four-fifths are not Muslim. So were going to
be concerned about a backlash from the one-fifth? Watch the local CBS affiliate in
Washington, D.C.s report on the 22 communes operated by Muslims of America:
WND informed Lacks that several reputable researchers, media outlets and even the FBI
itself, have documented the terrorist ties of Gilanis group. Comments from Gilani himself
make reference to America being the enemy of Islam and that he was establishing
training camps for the Soldiers of Allah.

Lacks said he had to go answer another phone call and abruptly ended the interview with
WND before he could be asked if he was aware of specific incidents, such as the 1992 raid
on MOAs Beuna Vista, Colorado, compound that found a cache of assault rifles and
explosives, primed and ready to be fired, or about the firebombing of a Hindu temple in
Colorado by MOA members. The camp in Colorado was also where a recruitment video
was captured in which Gilani touted the Soldiers of Allah and showed members engaging
in military-type drills, marching with rifles, setting off explosives and assaulting fictional
enemies.
One police chief not convinced group is peace loving
But not all law enforcement officers are dismissive of the group and its potential as a
terrorist sleeper cell within the U.S.
John W. Gaissert, the police chief of Commerce, Georgia, near the MOA camp in Franklin
County, is a retired Navy commander who has spent a career in law enforcement, working
directly on military and civilian counter-terrorism issues.
Gaissert was a security consultant for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and also testified
in 2010 to a U.S. House Subcommittee on Intelligence. He believes it would be a mistake to
dismiss Jamaat Fuqra and Muslims of America as merely pietistic Muslims trying to live in
peace out in the countryside.
Their spiritual mentor is Sheikh Gilani and his concept is to make your enemy your friend
and then kill them, Gaissert said.
Gilani came to America in 1979 and got his start in a mosque in New York.
And of course the U.S. always seems to back the wrong hound, and when the Afghans
were fighting the Russians he recruited 100 men who trained in Pakistan and then fought
under Osama bin Laden, Gaissert said. In any event he is a radical clerical.
Yet, the compound on Madinah Road outside of Commerce in a remote area of north
Georgia has not had any reported acts of violence.

You could probably surmise that all these groups are probably on a federal radar screen,
but there is no department of pre crime. We act on intelligence but until someone commits
a crime there is not much to do, we still have a free country, Gaissert told WND. Weve
had no overt acts of violence. That is not to say they are benign because if you research
Jamaat Fuqra in other parts of the country we have had acts of violence. We have not had
any violent acts from the group here but you have to look at the roots. We have enough
information to know there are specific facts that can be stated about this particular
organization.
FBI documents show the groups members have been tied to 10 murders, three
firebombings and one attempted firebombing, as well as welfare fraud.
We know al-Qaida and ISIS have called for lone-wolf attacks against law enforcement and
now weve seen object lessons in Europe, and weve also seen them in Fort Hood, Texas,
and in Oklahoma, and in Boston and in New York. This is not something to take lightly.
The notion that it cant happen here and it cant happen to me is pretty myopic in terms of
a world view. Thats a fatal philosophy for police.
Mawyer said he believes the favorable treatment from local law enforcement boils down to
politics.
You can speculate about why the local law enforcement community always puts out such
positive stuff about these groups, but put yourself in their position. They dont have any
legal means to do anything with these camps, and to try to face re-election every four years
with the possibility that you have a terrorist training camp in your jurisdiction, its just
easier to try to say these are not terrorist camps, just peace-loving people trying to educate
their own kids and do their own farming, he said. Theres a lot of political pressure on
these sheriffs.
Gaissert said one thing is certain that political correctness has seemed into law
enforcement at the federal level and some of that has leaked down to the state and local
levels.

It seems that if an attack is sponsored or directed by a terrorist organization they will

label it a terrorist act. But if an act or event is jihadist inspired, that is by someone who was
radicalized by a teaching in a mosque or over the Internet, they will not call it an act of
terrorism, he said. But a rose by any other name is still a rose. Why would you want to
cloud the issue or deny the reality of it?
Sheriff Stevie Thomas of Franklin County, where the larger of the two Georgia camps has
operated for years, near Commerce, did not return repeated phone calls from WND.
Sheriff Bruce Bryant of York County, S.C., which also has a large MOA enclave, also did
not return calls.
So for any sheriff to claim that we put out false information, they will never put a finger on
anything weve shown that is in anyway false because they cant. Its all very well
researched, Mawyer said. We hear this all the time, not just from sheriffs departments.
Is the video false? Are Gilanis own words false?
Mawyer points to Gilanis diatribe in the captured video from Colorado as the most
damning evidence.
He said We are establishing the most advanced Islamic warfare training camps and were
in upstate New York, were in Georgia, were in Michigan and you can reach out to join us.
And America is the enemy.
Mawyer said he has no message for the local sheriffs who ignore or denigrate his research.
They have a duty to perform in their communities, he said. I hope they do it well.
Why Sheriff Jones (of Charlotte County) feels these are nice peaceful people, I dont
know, he continued. Our entire goal was just to say Look, they are here and heres what
theyve done in the past, and heres what they are capable of doing now.
What happened in Colorado in 1992 should stand as a lesson, he said.

They had their Colorado compound raided and shut down, and if you were to read all the
newspaper pieces from back prior to that raid it would sound the same way these are
nice peaceful people and then they found cashes of weapons and explosives.
Little chance of congressional hearings
Mawyer said he asked one congressman, who will remain nameless, about holding
hearings on Jamaat Fuqra and Muslims of the Americas. His response was jolting.
How far would I get if I tried to advance hearings on Capitol Hill into a group dealing
with a lot of women in its camps, most are black, and a minority religion, how far would I
get? the congressman asked him.
Its like three strikes and youre out. Youre not going to hold a hearing on these people,
youd be depicted as racists and Islamophobes and anti-women, Mawyer said. All the
facts are in the documentary, and the book, it speaks for itself. If people want to take the
word of their sheriffs department over what this group puts out themselves, then so be it.