Muslim men of Islamberg in upper New York, a Jihad-training community, disappeared to Pakistan, which adds to disturbing signs of how young Muslims across America are joining jihad in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia etc. and returning home to carry on their holy jihad.
The Wall Street Journal reports this week that U.S. investigators are discovering more and more young Muslims are vanishing from mosques, madrassas, and Islamic centers.
The disappearance, the Journal notes, are raising grave concerns among FBI and Homeland Security officials, as it may onset jihadist activity on American soil in the near future.
Hundreds of Muslim men are also missing from Islamberg, a reclusive Muslim town in upper New York, and this is not a propitious omen either.
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The sentry post is gone and no guards are in sight at the entrance of the 70-acre Islamic settlement located in the dense forest between Deposit and Hancock. It was founded by Pakistani-born cleric Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, an Afghan jihad veteran and founder of Jamaat ul-Fuqra (Community of the Poor).
Young men in Islamic garb no longer congregate before the makeshift mosque, and no students are in attendance at the one-room shack that serves as Sheikh Gilani's “International Quranic Open University.”
Gunfire no longer can be heard from the firing ranges along the eastern parameter of the property – and no grunts come from new recruits at the obstacle course.
A new sign at the entranceway reads, “Welcome to Holy Islamberg: The International Quranic Open University.” Next to this sign, which features the image of a mosque emerging from the mountains, is a pot of plastic carnations. Another sign proclaims that the community is home to the “United Muslim-Christian Forum.”
The statement of welcome is, however, offset by the “No Trespassing” signs, nailed to trees throughout the compound.
On the opposite side of the road leading into the community is a rack of metal mailboxes bearing such names as Abdul-Haqq, Abdul Jalil, Mumim Roberts, Abdullah Simonds, and Salam Insan.
What has happened to this once-bustling complex of radical Islamists: a place where the cries of muezzins were accompanied by the incessant rat-tat-tat of machine gunfire? Where are the Arab dignitaries that used to visit this remote community in chauffeur-driven limousines? Where are the armed sentries, who warded away all intruders?
A handful of children play in the mud and muck before rows of rusty old trailers, and a few women in full burkas walk along the rutty dirt road that leads to the heart of the squalid Muslim compound.
The few residents, who remain in the settlement, are not environmentalists. Sewage seeps from septic tanks and outhouses into the creek that flows at the base of the settlement. Bags of rotting garbage remain stacked between the trailers. And the once pristine countryside is now littered with junk cars, moldy mattresses, empty tanks of propane, and old appliances.
Where are the men?
What has happened to this bustling center of jihad training?
Why has Islamberg become a ghost town?
This phenomenon of vanishing Muslim men is occurring at mosques, madrassas, and other Islamic communities throughout the country and at other Jamaat ul-Fuqra paramilitary compounds, including one in Red House, Virginia.
U.S. investigators have now discovered that many of the missing Muslims are showing up in the killing fields of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia.
Five American Muslims recently were arrested in Pakistan following a raid at the home of a member of the Jaish-e-Muhammad, a Pakistani movement designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2001.
The arrested American Muslims—identified as Ahmed Abdullah, Waqar Hassan Khan, Eman Hassan, Yasir and Rami Zamzam—were planning to join the Taliban to fight the U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Zamzam is a graduate dental student at Howard University, where he served as president of the Muslim Student Association (MSA), active in muzzling critical views on Islam on U.S. university campuses.
David Coleman Headley, another disappeared Muslim and a native of Chicago, attended Lashkar-e-Toiba-operated terrorism training camps in Pakistan. He helped Lashker-e-Toiba members and others plan and execute attacks on Danish publishers of offensive cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, as well as the violent attack in Mumbai that killed 173 people.
At the time Headley was taken into custody, U.S. investigators discovered that 20 Somali immigrants, who were reported missing from a mosque in Minnesota, had joined the Islamist insurgent group, al Shabaab, and were engaged in fighting Somalia's U.S.-backed government.
Then, there is the case of Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old resident of Denver, who made a trip to Peshawar, Pakistan, in 2008 for the stated purpose of visiting his wife, but showed up at an al-Qaeda training camp, where he received instruction in making and detonating explosives. In September, Zazi was collared by federal officials as he made his way to New York City to work as a coffee vendor, but, in reality, to carry out attacks with the same back-pack bombs that were used to blow up a train station in Madrid and several subway stations in London.
So, where are the Muslim men from Islamberg?
The answer comes from a heavy-set woman in a long black burka, who stops to check her mail box. “The men – all gone,” she says in halting English, adding “All – in Pakistan.”
Sheikh Gilani, imam of the Yasin Masjid in Brooklyn, established Islamberg in 1980. A quack practitioner of something called “Koranic psychiatry”, Gilani presented himself to the Brooklyn congregation as "the sixth Sultan ul Faqr,” with a lineage back to Prophet Mohammed. He claimed to have supernatural powers that came from his regular reception of visits by jinn and “non-human beings.”
Sporting ammunition belts, Gilani called upon members of a Black Muslim street gang, known as Dar al-Islam (DAR), to take part in the holy war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Hundreds answered his call and headed to training camps in Pakistan, which had been established by Osama bin Laden, and other members of the mujahadeen.
Under Gilani’s direction, the DAR became Jamaat ul-Fuqra and continued its prison ministry under Muslims of the Americas, a new, non-profit corporation. The sheikh soon came to realize that it would be financially advantageous to train new recruits for the holy war on American soil rather than shelling out the freight of sending them to Lahore and Peshawar. He purchased a 70-acre parcel of land near Green Haven, set up a firing range and an obstacle course, purchased a slew of old single-wide trailers and created a paramilitary compound, called Islamberg.
When released from the federal prison, former convicts of DAR now received not only the customary $10 and a suit of clothes, but also a one-way ticket to Gilani’s compound.
What happened to Islamberg and the International Quranic Open University?
The answer comes from Sheikh Gilani’s recruitment videos: “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.”
Similarly, in a handbook, published by the university, Gilani wrote that the foremost duty of all students is to wage war against “the oppressors of Muslims.” The students are expected to sign an oath that reads: “I shall always hear and obey, and whenever given the command, I shall readily fight for Allah’s sake.”
Now, the Islamberg recruits, trained in the basics of guerilla warfare, have been deployed in Pakistan for advanced courses in explosives and weapons of mass destruction.
They will be returning home soon.
This article appeared in FamilySecurityMatters.org. Paul L. Williams is the author of The Day of Islam: The Annihilation of America and the Western World, The Al Qaeda Connection, and other best-selling books. He is a frequent guest on such national news networks as ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, MSNBC, and NPR.
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