The Charlotte County Files

In the recent days The Southside Messenger — a small regional newspaper covering an area that includes Charlotte County, Virginia — has published pair of letters to the editor from residents of the Muslims of America compound near Red House, as well as an uncritical “news” story — dare I say puff-piece? — about the MOA.

Christine, the Operations Manager of the 910 Group, was dismayed by the lack of substantive information in the newspaper about Sheikh Gilani and Jamaat ul-Fuqra. She wrote an email to Averett Jones, the editor of The Southside Messenger, and suggested that he consider some of the available sources on Sheikh Gilani’s terrorist and criminal activities.

Mr. Jones proved an unreceptive audience. At first he suggested that there was no information about any terrorist activities by Sheikh Gilani, that all the allegations floating around on the web were derived from questionable fringe groups such as the Christian Action Network. Only information from the federal government would convince him. If he could be shown any such data, he would be glad to publish a story about it in his paper.

After Christine provided a copious amount of government information, Mr. Jones insisted that he meant that there was none from the State Department, which he considered the authoritative source. When supplied with State Department links, he added a requirement that they be recent documents, not from before 2002.

Christine has now supplied him with recent government documents, both state and federal, State Department and otherwise, detailing the extensive criminal and terrorist activities of Sheikh Gilani and the Muslims of America. But she is convinced that Mr. Jones is not acting in good faith, and will never make good on his promise to publish such material if she were to produce it.

As a result, she has decided to go public with the whole exasperating exchange. She is writing to all her contacts in Charlotte County — local government officials, law enforcement personnel, businesspeople, and ordinary citizens — to let them know that their local newspaper editor has been engaging in de facto censorship concerning Sheikh Gilani, Jamaat ul-Fuqra, and the Muslims of America compound near Red House.


In the process of dealing with a recalcitrant newspaper editor, Christine has managed to compile the web’s most comprehensive collection of links to official documents detailing the activities of Sheikh Gilani. Readers who are interested should save her lists for future reference.

Notice how closely Mr. Jones’ attitude reflects that of the MSM — no need to find out the facts; we know what’s true; any information obtained from conservative sources is by definition invalid; etc., etc.

It’s the Tiny Trickle Media aping the Mainstream Media.

Averett Jones, the editor of The Southside Messenger, told Christine, “If anyone could provide concrete evidence to a terrorist connection we will be happy to publish it.”

Don’t hold your breath for that one.

Christine has given me permission to post the entire email exchange here. Take a look, and see the extremes to which denial, self-dhimmification, and willful blindness will go.

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Email sent to Charlotte County residents, February 19, 2007

Hi,

You may have heard that a rally will be held Tuesday February 20 at 6:00 pm at the County Court House administration building, to protest the Charlotte Board of Supervisors’ vote on February 6 to honor Sheikh Gilani by naming a road after him. I will attend the rally as a concerned Virginia resident, and I hope you will too, if you read even some of the information provided here in links to 9 official U.S. federal or state government websites and reports that link Gilani to terrorism.

According to press reports, the public road sign has since been removed (the private one remains), but the Board’s vote preserves it on official government maps, and keeps it as part of Virginia’s cultural heritage and economic development profile. The negative impact extends to the entire state, not just to Charlotte County.

The Charlotte Board’s decision was based on incorrect information. According to the February 6 issue of the Charlotte Gazette (page 3), the Board’s decision to honor Sheikh Gilani was based on Supervisor Nancy Carwile’s research:

“But Carwile said she had extensively researched FBI, State Department, and Justice Department websites and could find no proof of any Gilani-based terrorist acts. In fact, during a brief Power Point presentation at the beginning of the meeting, all she did find were sites ‘made up’ by groups and individuals that supposedly showed ‘facts.’”

Supervisor Carwile is incorrect. Sheikh Gilani is linked to terrorism, as shown in several official U.S. federal and state government websites listed below.

I presented these links in a lengthy email to Averett Jones, editor of the Southside Messenger; that email is attached in entirety and summarized below. Mr. Jones stated, initially, that these websites are “pretending” to be official, and therefore he will not publish any articles on their existence.

I urge you to decide for yourself, to inform yourself about Sheikh Gilani and Jamaat ul-Fuqra, and to determine on your own the validity of this information and its serious implications for your community.

The exchange with Mr. Jones is included below, in chronological order, to explain why I am sending this information out, citizen to citizen. After a very long effort, I have given up trying to encourage Mr. Jones to publish the information. I include the links to the reports first, for your convenience.

Regards,
Christine

Summary of U.S. Federal and State Government Websites and Reports linking Sheikh Gilani and Jamaat ul-Fuqra to terrorism

1.		These first links all refer to the annual State Department “Patterns of Global Terrorism” Reports. Sheikh Gilani is mentioned in each of them. I provide links for all years in which I found his name. Search text for “Gilani”: http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps14740/www.state.gov/ www/global/terrorism/1997Report/backg.html http://sweden.usembassy.gov/terror/rpt1998/appb.html http://stockholm.usembassy.gov/terror/rpt1996/appb.html http://stockholm.usembassy.gov/terror/rpt1995/appb.html http://stockholm.usembassy.gov/terror/rpt1999/appb.html
2.		The next link is a reply to a query about the delisting of JUF in 2000 by the State Department: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2002/7738.htm
3.		This link is to the transcript of a State Department briefing from 01/31/2002: Search text for “Gilani” http://usembassy-australia.state.gov/hyper/2002/0131/epf401.htm
4.		This excerpt is from the State Department briefing from March 27, 2002. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2002/9025.htm
5.		This testimony by Daniel Pipes is provided by the State Department at: http://www.state.gov/s/p/of/proc/tr/11443.htm
6.		These reports for 2004 and 2005, published by the California Department of Justice on “Organized Crime in California, Annual Report to the California Legislature.” See pages 2,23,24 and 25 in 2004; page 26 in 2005 http://caag.state.ca.us/publications/org_crime2004.pdf
7.		This link is from the Colorado Attorney General’s official website: http://www.ago.state.co.us/pr/121001_link.cfm Gilani’s name is spelled here as “Jilani.”
8.		This Library of Congress site provides a brief summary for a report on Jamaat ul-Fuqra: http://www.loc.gov/rr/international/hispanic/terrorism/pakistan.html
9.		The National Criminal Justice Reference Service, of the Department of Justice, provides this 93 page report on Jamaat ul Fuqra and Sheikh Gilani (spelled Jilani here): http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/209520.pdf

- - - - - - - - - -
Email Exchange and Link Summary between Averett Jones, Editor, Southside Messenger, and Christine

[Mr.Jones’ computer appears to be set a day ahead – it may be a yahoomail problem.]

[All emails below will be forwarded, individually, at your request, if you wish to validate the accuracy of this email exchange. All emails are included here in entirety, with the exception of the very long Feb. 18, 2007 email with 9 categories of links, which is summarized in this page and included in full as an appendix.]

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Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:16:34 –0500
From: Averett Jones editor@southsidemessenger.com
To: Christine
Subject: Re: Sheikh Gilani Road Sign Rally Feb 20

Dear Mrs ---,

Thank you for your letter and the links to Mercury news.com. I have personally read every article I could find on Gilani both in mainstream press and on web sites. I read your link to Mercury News and found the same information I have found in hundreds of websites and on CAN’s website. Our problem with this information is that not one of the claims regarding Gilani is ever documented. Gilani is not listed on any government website as a possible terrorist.

The article states “But over the years, state and federal authorities have described him as the head of an international terrorist group who draws financial support from followers in the United States.”

I have found this quote many times but again no reference to which “state and federal authorities.”

If anyone could provide concrete evidence to a terrorist connection we will be happy to publish it. At this point all we have found are rumors mostly taken from CAN’s website. We have also received dozens of emails with quotes alleged to be from Gilani which also appear to originate on CAN’s website. If you find any additional information please do not hesitate to send it to us.

Thank You for writing.
Averett Jones
Editor, The Southside Messenger

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Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 19:57:43 -0800 (PST)
From: Christine
Subject: Re: Sheikh Gilani Road Sign Rally Feb 20
To: editor@southsidemessenger.com

Hi,

Thanks for your prompt reply. I searched on U.S. government sites and immediately found a number of links, which I provide with annotation below for your convenience. I hope that you will follow through on these. I will make them available, to assist your own efforts, to other stakeholders in our state and nation.

The total time required to find these was approximately 1 hour. I went to the central search website for the U.S. and state government sites, USAsearch.gov. I have not searched Lexis Nexis yet, since you expressed an interest primarily in official government sites.

You state in your email to me, “If anyone could provide concrete evidence to a terrorist connection we will be happy to publish it.” Below, I provide reports from the State Department, the U.S. Department of Justice, the California Department of Justice, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, the Library of Congress research service, and a 93 page report on Gilani and Jamaat ul Fuqra funded by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.

These reports provide concrete evidence to a terrorist connection for Sheikh Gilani and Jamaat ul Fuqra. I will be happy to see you publish these materials. Please send me a link to the published article.

The nine links follow below, with summary annotations and excerpts for your convenience.

[See Appendix at the end of this email for the details supplied to Mr. Jones.]

Regards,
Christine
Fairfax, Virginia

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Tue, 20 Feb 2007 09:02:47 –0500
From: Averett Jones editor@southsidemessenger.com
To: Christine
Subject: Re: Sheikh Gilani Road Sign Rally Feb 20

Morning Ms ---,

Again, thank you for the information. I have already seen these sites but the problem is that when I attempt to return to the “State Department” website from them, they are not attached to that site. This indicates they are not official sites. Please advise me if you find additional information.

Sincerely
Averett Jones
The Southside Messenger

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Mon, 19 Feb 2007 06:43:56 -0800 (PST)
From: Christine
Subject: Re: Sheikh Gilani Road Sign Rally Feb 20
To: editor@southsidemessenger.com

Hi,

Mr. Jones, I’m beginning to think you’re not actually looking at these links. Let me urge you to do so, with greater care.

Of the nine itemized links below to official government sites that I provided, ALL of them have a link back to the official home page of the government agency. I just checked.

Two of them are old enough that they go back to an archived home page:

1.		In the five links provided for item #1 below, the first item is an archive file, and clicking on the state department link returns to the archive home page. Perhaps you are not aware of the archiving policies for websites within the U.S. Government. Of course, clicking on the State Department link for the other four items leads to the current State Department home page. Is it possible you clicked only on the first link of all those I provided? Surely not.
2.		Item #3 is also an archive file from an embassy website, but clicking on the “home” page link leads to an official homepage. This appears to me to be a non-standard approach to archiving, by the way, and I am happy for you not to treat it as an active link.

That leaves 8 additional links — plus the four from Item #1 — that are not archived files, but are active and all are on identified official government websites.

I look forward to your researching these documents, preparing a balanced article, and publishing it as you said you would do in an earlier email. Please send me a copy when you do.

As noted before, I will also be helping your efforts to educate the public, by sharing our email exchanges with stakeholders in our state and nation.

Regards,
Christine
Fairfax, Virginia

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Tue, 20 Feb 2007 10:32:33 –0500
From: Averett Jones editor@southsidemessenger.com
To: Christine
Subject: Re: Sheikh Gilani Road Sign Rally Feb 20

Dear Mrs ---,

I AM looking at the links. The address to the state Department is http://www.state.gov. Any link that does not begin with this address is not an official website it is a private site made to look official. I have serious reservations with any site made to look official with no official standing. The site I mentioned earlier has a return link to the State Dept. but the site itself is not official. The only official links you provided are in item 2 and 4.

Item 2 Question: The group headed by Shaykh Gilani used to be designated by the State Department as a terrorist group but it was taken off the list. Why?

Answer: Jamaat ul-Fuqra has never been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. It was included in several recent annual terrorism reports under “other terrorist groups,” i.e., groups that had carried out acts of terrorism but that were not formally designated by the Secretary of State. However, because of the group’s inactivity during 2000, it was not included in the most recent terrorism report covering that calendar year.

This does not state Gilani is a terrorist in fact it states ul-Fuqua was not included in 2000. (and has not been included for the past 6 years.) As I said earlier we are searching for the truth. I have difficulty believing the truth will be found in sites pretending to be official government sites.

Regards
Averett

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Mon, 19 Feb 2007 11:58:21 -0800 (PST)
From: Christine
Subject: Two questions regarding Charlotte Board and Sheikh Gilani research
To: editor@southsidemessenger.com

Hi,

I have two questions for you, Mr. Jones.

1. Question #1:

In an article by Robert Benning, “Name Will Stay the Same” (Charlotte Gazette, 2/7/07, page 3), Nancy Carwile of the Charlotte Board of Supervisors is quoted as follows:

“But Carwile said she had extensively researched FBI, State Department, and Justice Department websites and could find no proof of any Gilani-based terrorist acts. In fact, during a brief Power Point presentation at the beginning of the meeting, all she did find were sites ‘made up’ by groups and individuals that supposedly showed ‘facts.’

“Anyone can make up a website that says anything...you have to be careful when you search the internet,” she said. “If it doesn’t end with ‘.gov’ then it is not an official government site.”

This statement by Carwile closely reflects your own statements in our exchange of emails. Are you the source of Carwile’s research? Did you prepare the powerpoint she provided to the Board? The Board made their decision based on an assessment that no official websites or reports, federal or state, exist that link Gilani with terrorism. Are you responsible for that assessment, and therefore for their decision?

2. Question #2:

As to your suggestions that the websites I sent you are, in your words, “sites pretending to be official government sites,” your assessment is simply wrong, and you do need to learn more about domain name conventions within .gov sites. The site URLs that you have decided are pretending” are Embassy websites. Their URLs are either listed as subdomains within the state department website, or as their own URLS with a .gov suffix.

The other website links that I provided are also either U.S. federal or state government sites. You have not commented on these other links in your emails, although I am confident you exercised prudence and due diligence, followed each link, read the webpage content or the attached reports, and assessed the validity of the URLs, before dismissing them as “sites pretending to be official government sites.”

The URLs for these additional sites include:

1.		Three websites with the http://www.state.gov URL which you say you trust;
2.		The Office of the Attorney General of California (NOTE — NOT A .GOV ADDRESS, BUT STILL OFFICIAL) http://caag.state.ca.us/publications/org_crime2004.pdf
3.		The Office of the Attorny General of Colorado (NOTE — NOT A .GOV ADDRESS, BUT STILL OFFICIAL) http://www.ago.state.co.us/pr/121001_link.cfm
4.		The Library of Congress, ending in a .gov address http://www.loc.gov/rr/international/hispanic/terrorism/pakistan.html
5.		The National Criminal Justice Reference Service, also ending in a .gov address http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/209520.pdf

So this is my second question, Mr. Jones. You state in your email, “I have already seen these sites.” If so, and if you suspected that they were “pretending,” can you document your phone calls or emails to the official government agency webmasters, or to their public information offices or, in fact, to anyone, in which you actually verified that these sites were not official? Please forward that documentation if it exists.

I am, of course, particularly interested in seeing it, if your assessment of these sites was the basis for the Board of Supervisor’s decision to name the road in honor of Sheikh Gilani.

Thanks!

Regards,
Christine
Fairfax, Virginia

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Tue, 20 Feb 2007 15:52:52 –0500
From: Averett Jones
To: Christine
Subject: Re: Two questions regarding Charlotte Board and Sheikh Gilani research

Mrs. ---

I apologize for any misunderstanding. I am trying to answer your concerns and get my work done at the same time. I was not saying the websites you listed were not official. They are. When I said I could not find information on official sites, I should have said current sites. I have been unable to find anything after the 2002 statement that Gilani is no longer listed as a potential terrorist. There are hundreds of current sites which contain the same information that was official from 1995 to 2002 which are not official but have current dates. I have been unable to find anything official with current dates. I should have said I have seen the same information listed on these unofficial sites. I have never discussed this matter with Dr. Carwile until after the board meeting, nor am I responsible for any board decision. I will again apologize for the miscommunication and if you can find any current information regarding Gilani, please share it with me. My personal opinion is simple. I believe that everyone is innocent until proved guilty and this includes you, me, the Muslims in Red House and Sheik Gilani.

Sincerely, Averett Jones

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Mon, 19 Feb 2007 13:30:48 -0800 (PST)
From: Christine
Subject: Re: Two questions regarding Charlotte Board and Sheikh Gilani research
To: editor@southsidemessenger.com

Hi,

You state below, “I have been unable to find anything after the 2002 statement that Gilani is no longer listed as a potential terrorist.”

Please refer again to the list of links that I sent you. No doubt you reviewed them carefully and simply missed the dates of the documents. The report from the U.S. Department of Justice, http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/
grants/209520.pdf, is dated April, 2005, and includes significant cited information from 2004.

The report from the California Department of Justice is, in fact, their 2004 Annual Report on Organized Crime.

Since you are concerned about recent information, I also found references to Gilani in the California 2005 Annual Report on Organized Crime, available here: http://caag.state.ca.us/publications/org_crime2005.pdf

This means that the latest official government information I could find, based on a 1 hour search, is less than two years old.

As mentioned before, I look forward to your doing what you said you would: “If anyone could provide concrete evidence to a terrorist connection we will be happy to publish it.”

Please do so.

Thanks,

Regards,
Christine
Fairfax, Virginia


APPENDIX

1. These first links all refer to the annual State Department “Patterns of Global Terrorism” Reports. Sheikh Gilani is mentioned in each of them. I provide links for all years in which I found his name.

http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps14740/www.state.gov/
www/global/terrorism/1997Report/backg.html
http://sweden.usembassy.gov/terror/rpt1998/appb.html
http://stockholm.usembassy.gov/terror/rpt1996/appb.html
http://stockholm.usembassy.gov/terror/rpt1995/appb.html
http://stockholm.usembassy.gov/terror/rpt1999/appb.html

2. The next link is a reply to a query about the delisting of JUF in 2000 by the State Department:
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2002/7738.htm

3. This link is to the transcript of a State Department briefing from 01/31/2002: The mention of Sheikh Gilani is the following excerpts from the transcript:
http://usembassy-australia.state.gov/hyper/2002/0131/epf401.htm

		QUESTION:		Pearl. Do we know anything, or does the State Department know anything about this sheikh that they have arrested, Sheikh Gilani or his group? Just tell us everything.
		MR. BOUCHER:		That’s the problem. I don’t think I’m in a position to tell you everything about what we know, about groups or an ongoing investigation. So I’m going to have to believe that it wouldn’t be in the best interests of Mr. Pearl for us to do that. I can make clear that the Pakistani police are continuing their efforts. We are assisting them, US law enforcement officials are assisting them. The cooperation is very close, and as the Secretary told you, the senior Pakistani officials are interested and involved. Our Embassy in Islamabad and the State Department have been in very close touch with Mr. Pearl’s family and with the Wall Street Journal to work with them, to keep them updated. The Embassy met today with American journalists in Pakistan to advise them on the security situation. And we have taken other measures to increase the security awareness of official and non-official Americans. We issued that new Travel Warning yesterday to include information on possible kidnappings and terrorist actions. Mr. Pearl should be released immediately and unconditionally. His continued detention is no help to any cause. This continuing to hold him, threatening to kill him would only hurt the people who are holding him. He is a Wall Street Journal reporter, and he should be released immediately and unconditionally. He is a respected journalist. He has no connection with the US Government.
		QUESTION:		With the arrest of Sheikh Gilani, does the United States believe they are going in the right direction (inaudible) with Daniel Pearl?
		MR. BOUCHER:		Again, I’m not going to comment on the process of investigation, on the progress of the investigation. I think I really have to let that proceed, and it would not help Mr. Pearl for me to try to talk about it or second-guess it from here. I’m sorry…
		QUESTION:		Without getting into the details of the investigation, this group that Mr. Gilani belonged to used to be on the State Department terrorism list and was taken off. Could you say why?

4. This excerpt is from the State Department briefing from March 27, 2002.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2002/9025.htm

				QUESTION:				The group Jamaat ul-Fuqra , which is associated with Sheikh Gilani, who may or may not be implicated in Daniel Pearl’s murder, was taken off the FTO list last year or in --
				MR. BOUCHER:				A couple years ago, I think, yes.
				QUESTION:				In the 2000 Report. With its reemergence, why hasn’t that been put back on the list?
				MR. BOUCHER:				We look at these things very carefully. It is a very careful review. It is an extensive review of the information before we do it. As you know, some of these have been challenged in court, although they were ultimately upheld. So it’s a very careful process to make sure that we gather all the available information and take the appropriate steps.
								Now, there are some designations under the Treasury Department’s list; for example, some of these groups get designated first in order to block their assets before we formally make them a Foreign Terrorist Organization. But it is a very careful process to make sure we get it right.
				QUESTION:				Can you say whether that was being looked at again?
				MR. BOUCHER:				I don’t think we’re able to say whether a specific group is under review, but we’re looking at various groups all the time for possible designation.

5. This testimony by Daniel Pipes is provided by the State Department at:

http://www.state.gov/s/p/of/proc/tr/11443.htm

Concerning Sheikh Gilani, the state department website excerpt from Pipes states:

“Daniel Pearl was suppose to meet with Sheikh Gilani, Pakistani militant Islamic leader who some 20 years ago organized a group known in this country as Al-Fuqra, which literally means “the poor.” It was made up primarily of African-Americans converts who live mostly in self-contained rural communities with their own schools and militias. They have a history of violence, for example murdering an Egyptian immigrant in Arizona in 1990 and recently a member of the California branch was arrested for killing a policeman. This is an extremely dangerous group, but I have no idea if Daniel Pearl was on the track of discovering something new about it .”

6. This is a report published by the California Department of Justice on “Organized Crime in California, Annual Report to the California Legislature 2004.”

http://caag.state.ca.us/publications/org_crime2004.pdf

Here are interesting excerpts:

“connection to a compound located on 377 acres off of Highway 245 in a rural mountain area of northeastern Tulare County near Fresno, California, known as Baladullah. The compound was, at one time, advertised as a site for a chapter of the Islamic Quranic Open University (IQOU). The school was founded by Pakistani cleric Sheik Sayed Mubarik Ali Gilani and has campuses on similar type compounds in various regions of the country. Sheik Gilani is also the founder of Jamaat el- Fuqra, a group that has been designated by the U.S. Department of State as a terrorist organization, which he created in the 1980s while in Brooklyn, New York, for the purpose of purifying Islam through violence. Sheik Gilani heads the organization from his base of operations in Lahore, Pakistan. Law enforcement authorities suspect that the compound may have been owned and occupied by individuals connected to Jamaat El-Fuqra, in part, because the IQOU and the terrorist organization are believed to be linked due to their crossover membership and that both groups operate under Gilani’s authority.

“During 2004, members of groups supporting international terrorism were engaged in the following criminal activity....

“...In November, a California resident and suspected Fuqra member was arrested in York, South Carolina, on a federal warrant for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. This individual, a former resident of the Baladullah compound in Fresno and Tulare counties, was extradited to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he remains in custody at a federal detention center awaiting trial. In early November 2004, Baladullah was placed into foreclosure.”

7. This link is from the Colorado Attorney General’s official website:

http://www.ago.state.co.us/pr/121001_link.cfm

Gilani’s name is spelled here as “Jilani.”

The page content is the following:

“INFORMATION REGARDING COLORADO’S INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION OF MEMBERS OF JAMAAT UL FUQRA

Beginning in the late 1980s, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office successfully prosecuted members of a fundamentalist Sufi-militant Islamic sect known as “JAMAAT UL FUQRA”. Five FUQRA members were ultimately prosecuted between 1993 and 1994.

“FUQRA” is an Arabic word, which translates most accurately as “the impoverished”. The sect advocates the purification of the Islamic religion by means of force and violence. Sheikh Mubarik Ali Jilani Hasmi, who is known by many other aliases, and who also calls himself the sixth Sultan Ul Faqr, originated this group in Pakistan.

In addition to being suspected of committing numerous acts of domestic terrorism, FUQRA members in the United States have been suspected of committing fraud against various governmental entitlement programs in an effort to financially support their activities.

Colorado’s investigation indicated that the United States FUQRA movement was composed of approximately 30 different ‘Jamaats’ or communities, somewhat mobile in nature. Most of these ‘Jamaats’ are believed to currently exist today, along with what investigators deemed to be several ‘covert paramilitary training compounds’ -- one of which had been located in a remote mountainous area near Buena Vista, Colorado prior to Colorado’s prosecutions in the mid-1990s. The corresponding FUQRA ‘Jamaat’ to the Buena Vista compound was located in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Colorado’s investigation of FUQRA was initiated in 1989 when Colorado Springs Police Department detectives, initially investigating a series of burglaries, were contacted by the owner of a storage locker site and were told about a locker of, what appeared to be, abandoned property.

In September 1989, detectives executed a search warrant of the storage locker upon suspicion of illegal explosives. The search of the locker disclosed numerous items believed to belong to the FUQRA sect then residing in that area. Several explosive components-- thirty to forty pounds of explosives, three large pipe bombs, a number of smaller improvised explosive devices, shape charges, ten handguns-- some with obliterated serial numbers-- silencers in various stages of manufacture, military training manuals, reloading equipment, bomb-making instructions, and numerous FUQRA-related publications were located in this storage area. Titles of some of the publications included “Guerilla Warfare”, “Counter Guerilla Operations”, “Understanding Amateur Radio”, and “Fair Weather Flying,” and “Basic Blueprint Reading and Sketching.” Several silhouettes for firearms target practice were also discovered, including one with the words “FBI Anti-terrorist team” written on the target’s torso bullseye.

Of great interest to law enforcement officials were documents concerning potential ‘targets’ for destruction and murder in the Los Angeles, Tucson, and Denver areas, including surveillance-type photographs, maps with hand-drawn overlays, notes, etc., concerning these targets. In addition, references to Buckley Air National Guard Base, Rocky Mountain Arsenal, the Air Force Academy, and electrical facilities in Colorado, and Warren Air Force Base, and two Wyoming National Guard armories in Wyoming were found. A somewhat detailed description of a firebombing attack on what is believed to have been the Hare Krishna Temple in Denver was also discovered. An attack, as described in these writings, did, in fact, take place in Denver in August 1984, causing an estimated $200,000 in damage. Investigation by Denver authorities at that time revealed that a Hare Krishna Temple in Philadelphia, where FUQRA activity also had been noted, was firebombed in a similar fashion.

Among the many documents found in the Colorado Springs’ storage locker were numerous blank birth certificates; blank social security cards; several sets of Colorado drivers’ licenses, each containing a picture of the same individual, but each with a different identity; and many underground press publications concerning the assembly of phony identification -- to be reproduced in a manner to “withstand even close government scrutiny”.

Finally, the search disclosed a number of workers’ compensation claims, which ultimately led to a full-scale fraud investigation being conducted by the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment in coordination with the Colorado Attorney General’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Joint Terrorist Task Force.

This investigation revealed that Colorado Springs FUQRA members had defrauded the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment of approximately $350,000 dollars between September 1984 and January 1992. The mobility and multiple addresses and identities of the various FUQRA members posed a significant challenge to early detection and normal prevention of the fraud. As a result of the two-year investigation, five FUQRA members were indicted by the statewide grand jury in September 1992 on racketeering charges involving theft, mail fraud, and forgery. Six months after the indictments, further racketeering charges, including theft of rental property, conspiracy to commit murder and arson (the Denver Hare Krishna Temple), were also filed against the five individuals and a sixth person -- all FUQRA members. Some of the fraudulently obtained workers’ compensation funds were traced directly to payments for a parcel of land near Buena Vista used by the group as a residence compound and training site.

One of the FUQRA defendants convicted is James D. Williams. After his conviction in 1993 for conspiracy to commit first degree murder, racketeering, and forgery, Williams fled and remained a fugitive until being apprehended in Virginia in August 2000. He was returned to Colorado and sentenced this past March to 69 years in prison. From at least the middle 1980’s through 1990, Williams was a leader of a Colorado FUQRA.

The conviction for conspiracy to commit first degree murder referred to a comprehensive written plan for the murder of a Tucson, Arizona Muslim cleric, Rashad Khalifa. Khalifa was murdered in January 1990 in a manner that was remarkably similar to the written plan.

It is believed the activities of UL FUQRA across the nation continue. Just recently the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (BATF) arrested one of the former Colorado defendants and FUQRA member, Vincente Rafael Pierre, in Virginia on alleged ammunition violations. In California, a FUQRA member was arrested on the suspected murder of a Fresno County Deputy Sheriff this last August. In addition, FUQRA operates something called the Quranic Open University in Los Angeles, which has received over $1.5 million dollars over the course of the last two years in charter school funding. This entity is also located in New York City and Philadelphia. There are believed to be active UL FUQRA training compounds still existing in New York, Michigan, South Carolina, California, and perhaps other states.

FUQRA or its members have been investigated for alleged terrorist acts including murder and arson in New York, Detroit, Philadelphia, Toronto, Denver, Los Angeles and Tucson. UL FUQRA is suspected of more than thirteen firebombings and, at least, as many murders within the United States”

8. This Library of Congress site provides a brief summary for a report on Jamaat ul-Fuqra:

http://www.loc.gov/rr/international/hispanic/terrorism/pakistan.html

Jamaat ul-Fuqra

(http://www.ict.org.il/inter%5Fter/orgdet.cfm?orgid=16)

The International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), located in Herzlia, Israel, provides a profile for the terrorist organization, Jamaat ul-Fuqra, which is based in Pakistan. The Islamic sect commits acts of violence against those that they view as enemies of Islam. The ICT discusses the history and terrorist activities of Jamaat ul-Fuqra.”

9. The National Criminal Justice Reference Service, of the Department of Justice, provides this 93 page report on Jamaat ul Fuqra and Sheikh Gilani (spelled Jilani here):
http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/209520.pdf

Annotation: Using a case study of the investigation and prosecution of members of a terrorist group (Jamaat Ul Fuqra) in Colorado, this research report identifies the types of white-collar crimes used by the group for funding + mechanisms and identity deception and suggests how lessons learned from white-collar crime investigations can provide guidance for State and local police and prosecutors who may investigate terrorist groups.

Abstract: The Fuqra group was first organized in Pakistan by Sheikh Mubarik Al Jilani Hasmi, who also established a United States Fuqra organization in 1980. Most members of the U.S. Fuqra are African-Americans who have adopted extremist beliefs and live in communal environments or “Jamaats.” In August 1989, the discovery of a storage locker by the Colorado Springs police marked the beginning of an investigation that focused on fraudulent claims for worker’s compensation, a white-collar crime that is the focus of this report. Linked to the fraudulent worker’s compensation claims were other white-collar crimes, notably identification fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion. Proceeds from these crimes were used to plan violent terrorist acts. This research obtained information on these cases through interviews and document analysis. This report describes the Colorado investigation in a module format. The first module describes the organization and activity of Fuqra, followed by a module on the investigation of properties that included a vehicle search, a storage locker search, and the search of a Fuqra compound. The third module details investigations of four fraudulent worker’s compensation claims, and the fourth module addresses the group’s cash flow from fraud to the purchase of property. Legal strategies are profiled in a fifth module, and the sixth module discusses lessons learned and best practices. 13 tables, 4 charts, and 3 supplementary appendixes

Main Term(s): Domestic Preparedness

Index Term(s): White collar crimes; Organized crime investigation; Fraud; Revolutionary or terrorist groups; Prosecution; Organized crime; Insurance fraud; Terrorist tactics; Investigative techniques; Money laundering; NIJ final report; Colorado

Turning on the Light

 
A reader I’ll call Stefanie contacted me after my initial post on Jamaat ul-Fuqra. She has been researching JF for a long time, and was glad to see someone else working on it. She has sent me a wealth of information, with numerous links. I am reproducing a series of her emails below, in the hope that readers will follow the links and start researching this evil group on their own.

Stefanie has not only researched Jamaat ul-Fuqra, she has talked to the FBI and Homeland Security and apprised them of what she has learned. This woman deserves a medal.

I’ve redacted her information to protect her identity. She lives in “Big State” which has a JF compound near “Small Town.” These disguises are not, however, a cover for Virginia; the same thing is happening in other states.

	10/9/05
	I’m excited to read your post on the Jamaat ul-Fuqra in Virginia as I’ve researched the Muslims of the Americas compound here in Big State near Small Town (and Large Military Base). Sheik Gilani and his Al Fuqra jihadis are a shadowy, elusive and horrifying group who seem to operate under the radar. Big State Homeland Security and the FBI know about their compound and are keeping an eye on them. It was interesting to read in Who Killed Daniel Pearl? by Bernard-Henri Levy that Danny Pearl was looking for the sheik in Pakistan.
	10/10/05 5:36 PM
	Baron: Here’s a good link for Al Fuqra below. The Muslims of the Americas used to have a website with pictures of their shrine to Sheik Gilani and a few articles by him. I had captured it with Internet Researcher but it’s on my old hard-drive. I’ll try to find the harddrive or the link to the website for you. I also had electronic files captured on Al Fuqra but that hard drive crashed and I hadn’t backed it up. (Big Lesson!)
	Anyway tonight I’ll research as much as I can for other links. I’m afraid many of them have disappeared from the web. I’ll send you the information by e-mail as I don’t want to identify myself and these links in the comments section. I have presented information about this group and the Al-Qaeda connection in middle Big State to the FBI and Homeland Security and they knew most of what I knew and by the time the meeting was over, they knew everything.
	Thanks for your visit to enemy territory and reporting. I’ve been tempted to visit Small Town and snoop myself.
	Fact Bites on Al-Fuqra.
	10/10/05 8:33 PM
	I found my paper files! Now how much is still up on the web, I don’t know but will find out and pass on to you. Gilani/Jilani, etc. is the imam to watch. He’s always under the radar, but hanging with tyrants, greedy despots, barbarian psychopaths and just plain evil beings who seek to control us by fear, intimidation and death.
	From the horse’s mouth: Holy Islamville.
	10/10/05 9:20 PM
	I’m sure you’ve read 60 Minutes on Gilani but just in case: Sheik Gilani.
	The link for the Big State Newspaper article on the Small Town compound is gone but it was one of those post-9/11-naïve-but-informative pieces and mentioned Daniel Pearl, crimes of arson, racketeering, murder, then interviewed the locals: “they seem warm and compassionate” “We’ve had no trouble with them whatsoever.” Pleasant,” blah, blah. But the MOA turned away the reporter when he questioned them about their crimes.
	[…]
	From a Pakistani paper with a title I can’t type. “Gillani was in the jihadi business for money” by Mubasher Bukhari.
	The Islamic Center here is tied directly to Al Farouq mosque in Brooklyn, or Jihadi Central East. Al Farouq sent an imam (American born, schooled in Yemen and Saudi Arabia) down to set up a school for the kids… and teach them the real Islam, and he’s doing it. His running partner from the Muslim Brotherhood is a Ph.D. in Animal Toxicology and has trained in religious studies and is the point man for all the media, he’s the dawa coordinator, who runs around to all the mainstream churches saying they’re wrong, he and his religion are right, the Koran says so and calls us to Islam. Barf. But he has been bested many times. Did they tell him he was going to the buckle on the Bible belt to do his missionary work? I don’t think so.
	Ties Al Fuqra and Al Qaeda into a neat package: Strange Bedfellows.
	10/11/05
	Interesting tie-in, Al-Fuqra and the Brits. Do you know the status of Al-Fuqra in the United States?
	I’ve been interested in this group for years since they’re down the street, so to speak, from us. Seems like Al-Fuqra via Sheik Gilani has always been around the edges of nasty jihadi activity in the U.S. This group is the sheik’s very own army of criminals living among us. No wonder the crime rate has risen.
	From the Anti-Defamation League. Sorry I can’t get the link to work. “Muslims of the Americas: In Their Own Words” “Al-Fuqra Holy Warriors of Terrorism” (pdf) [Note: the links seem to work now – ed.]
	10/12/05
	By the way we’ve just had a new Homeland Security chief appointed who is retired from the FBI, terrorism expert, etc. and I hope he will be better than the last one. Gen. [Redacted] told our State legislators at a committee meeting that there was no sign of Al Qaeda in our state and things were just hunky dory. After seeing a blurb in our newspaper about this, I e-mailed the smartest of our state senators who happened to be head of the of the committee and told him that was a crock and I could prove it. Showed him my paper files and led through the Big State connections right to our city’s doorstep and he asked me to take my files to Homeland Security. HLS agreed with my conclusions and I asked them why they told the public a lie. They didn’t want to worry anyone or stir anything up they said. I told them they had insulted the intelligence and character of our citizens and they ought to be ashamed. So we’ll see what this new guy does.

They didn’t want to worry anyone or stir anything up.

Yes indeed. The regular folks, the poor stupid sheep who comprise the citizenry of the United States of America, are such frail hothouse flowers that they can’t bear to hear disturbing news about murderous thugs in their midst. Best let them go about their business in happy ignorance.

And when their children are taken hostage at school, when their spouses are blown up at work, when their neighbors are beheaded to make jihad videos — why, we’ll call the police and the FBI and Homeland Security, and they’ll find those bad people who did those terrible things, and then we’ll… bring them to justice.

Yeah, right.

The layers of bureaucratic officialdom that smother this country want us all to be good sheep, to stay in the pen and eat the grass and be content, and do what we’re told.

The sheep, though… Every once and a while the sheep stop going “Baa” and start yelling “Bah!” Annie Jacobsen stopped being a sheep when terrorists made a practice run during her airplane flight. She was told to sit down and shut up and let her betters take care of the situation, but she didn’t. Now she’s watching out, just like the rest of us should be.

And what about the Joel Hinrichs incident in Norman, Oklahoma? The FBI says, “Go back to sleep. Nothing going on here. No connection to terrorism. Guy just blew himself up, that’s all.” Baa.

But the sheepdogs look at the same thing and say, “If that’s the case, how did you manage to raid the gathering of Hinrichs’ Muslim friends within minutes after the bomb went off?” Bah!

The sad fact is this: no matter what they’re doing to prevent terrorist attacks, the authorities don’t want us to know what’s going on. For whatever reasons, for sinister conspiratorial reasons (if you’re the paranoid type) or for the normal bureaucratic let’s-screw-everything-up-as-much-as-we-can-and-then-cover-our-asses reasons, they don’t want us to have the information.

But I say: Let the light in. Turn over all the rocks. Expose as much as you can of what’s really going on. The more information we have, the better. And if you’re not happy with what you learn, do what Stefanie did.

To repeat her most important words: “I told them they had insulted the intelligence and character of our citizens and they ought to be ashamed.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Bah!


Update: Papa Bear has sent a correction on the Hinrichs information above:

Regarding the “within minutes”: according to an article posted to freerepublic.com, Hinrichs’ roommate went to a gathering of fellow Muslims around midnight, and he and the others were arrested within minutes of him leaving the apartment, not within minutes of the blast.

Another Jihad Security Company

We have posted frequently on the seemingly innocuous religious organization, the Muslims of America, and their jihad wing, Jamaat ul-Fuqra. CP and I have repeatedly emphasized JF’s habit of forming security companies as a tactic to further the group’s shadowy goals.

The Politics of CP has posted a new exclusive investigative report today about a security company called EPAI Protective Services, Inc. (Executive Protection Academy International), which is associated with the Jamaat ul-Fuqra compound Madinah in Georgia:

It is known that one of the modus operandi of Fuqra cells has been the operation of security companies. They are a means to earn easy money for the organization. They can also provide privileged access to facilities, information, and weapons. Fuqra is currently known to operate security companies in NY and VA. They had done so in Colorado years ago until their compound was raided and their cell was broken up. Operatives of Fuqra’s security companies have been known to conduct brazen surveillance of various targets…

EPAI provides security for several locations in the Atlanta area including a trucking facility and a closed-down Ford plant. A search of the Hoovers business database indicates the company has six employees and sales of $100K. A subsequent search of Georgia security licenses connected to EPAI yielded six names.

The EPAI website tries to suggest the company is larger than records indicate. They claim to have an extensive domestic and international network.

CP points out the alarming proximity of EPAI to Atlanta Airport, which is one of the largest hubs on the East Coast.

In his commentary he says this:

In the world of modern jihad, most of today’s American Fuqra operatives are nothing more than street thugs on the hustle. However, it must recognized that there could be deeper-level covert operatives in the group involved in more serious activities. In Pakistan, Fuqra is known as a jihadi organization. In the U.S., they are rarely even acknowledged. Yet, the organization has existed here for two-and-a-half decades and many of its basic practices have not changed. They have simply shifted geographically and have become more adept at passing themselves off as moderates. The fact remains that their leadership continues to maintain peripheral if not direct connections to known terrorists and terrorist groups.

The infrastructure that Fuqra has established has taken time to assemble. Originally established as a militant organization, you can bet the network that has been built will be exploited to support militant activities, either directly or indirectly. Support activities can take many forms, including the providing of false documentation, safe houses, financing, training, weapons, logistics, security, surveillance, personnel, etc.

Back in the 1980s, when Jamaat ul-Fuqra was first building up its networks in the US and Canada and acquiring its criminal recruits, it was almost brazenly violent, running guns, blowing up Hindu temples, and assassinating its enemies.

Sometime towards the end of the decade, however, the group quieted down. The reasons for this remain speculative, but one rumor says that Sheikh Gilani, the group’s founder and emir, became alarmed at his subordinates’ activities, and reined them in to protect his long-term plans.

Jamaat ul-Fuqra does its recruiting in America’s prisons, so its adherents tend to be functionally indistinguishable from common criminals, except for their observance of Islam and the transfer of 30% of their income to Sheikh Gilani in Pakistan.

They run guns and engage in fraud and money-laundering. They set up security companies, which gives them a legitimate excuse to acquire weapons and surveillance equipment. Think about these fellows, moving in and out of banks, carrying cash in armored cars, setting up video surveillance cameras for their customers…

It may be that the Sheikh is content to be the emir of a lucrative criminal enterprise, and, much like the leaders of the IRA, has metamorphosed from a revolutionary terrorist into a Mafia don.

But I wouldn’t count on it. I hope the Feds are watching these guys very, very carefully.

Jamaat ul-Fuqra in Virginia, Part 3

 
A reader in Charlotte County — one who has more guts than I have, plus a better camera — sent some photos of Red House and the entrance to the Jamaat ul-Fuqra compound, supplying us with much better images than the ones I produced back in October.

First we have a panoramic view of the bustling metropolis of Red House:



Here is the big sign at the entrance to the compound on Route 615:



Sometimes the group appears as “Muslims of the Americas,” but here it is “The Muslims of America.” Knowlegeable readers are invited to supply a translation of the Arabic script. (Update: Commenter shoshanna has translated the Arabic on the sign as “in the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate.”)

And this is the signpost for the road that leads into the compound:



Just to remind our readers: Sheikh Gilani is not necessarily a peaceful and beloved religious figure who happens to lead a group of devoted followers. He heads a violent terrorist organization. In a 2002 Weekly Standard article, Mira L. Boland wrote:

	Fuqra’s founder and chief, the man Pearl sought to interview, is a rotund Kashmiri of Sufi background with long-standing ties to Pakistan’s Interservice Intelligence Agency (ISI), Sheikh Mubarik Ali Hasmi Shah Gilani. At least until President Musharraf’s decision last fall to support the American war on terrorism, the ISI sponsored terrorist training camps in Pakistan and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Sheikh Gilani has rubbed shoulders at international terrorist confabs with gunslingers from Hamas and Hezbollah, their mullah backers, and Osama bin Laden. And he has trained fighters for the battlefields of Kashmir, Chechnya, and Bosnia.
	Gilani launched his U.S. operations in 1980. Within ten years, Fuqra’s communes were billing themselves as havens where Muslim converts--many of them inner-city blacks, sometimes recruited in prison--could build new lives. At least seven such communities are active today, in Hancock, N.Y.; Red House, Va.; Tulare County, Calif.; Commerce, Ga.; York, S.C.; Dover, Tenn.; and Combermere, Canada. While some of these enclaves contain only rudimentary buildings and trailers, the California compound has 300 residents on a 440-acre spread, according to a recent report by a local ABC station. Residents deny any involvement with terror, but Fuqra has a history of getting into trouble with the law.
	Over the years, at least a dozen Fuqra members have been convicted of crimes including conspiracy to commit murder, firebombing, gun smuggling, and workers’ compensation fraud in the United States or Canada. And Fuqra members are suspects in at least 10 unsolved assassinations and 17 firebombings between 1979 and 1990. Nor is Fuqra’s criminal activity all in the past. In the last year alone, a resident of the California compound was charged with first degree murder in the shooting of a sheriff’s deputy; another was charged with gun smuggling; the state of California launched an investigation into the fate of more than a million dollars in public funds given to a charter school run by Fuqra leaders; and two residents of the Red House community were convicted of firearms violations, while a third awaits trial.

We’d all like to believe that here, in the land tolerance and freedom, Jamaat ul-Fuqra is just another group of devout believers who want to live in peace with their neighbors. But the evidence argues against that interpretation.

We’ll have to be alert, maintain an open mind, and keep our powder dry.

Local TV News Looks at Jamaat ul-Fuqra

 
An alert reader (Update: Snarking Dawg has given permission to be acknowledged as my source) from New York writes that his local WNYW-TV FOX 5 News did a report on the “Islamberg” Jamaat ul-Fuqra compound near Hancock.

I just wanted to let you know that our local Fox news affiliate in NYC just did an extensive report on ‘Islamberg’ in upstate NY. Here is their website, WNYW-TV Fox 5 News, although there is nothing on it about the report just yet.

I wish I had known it was coming on so I could have taped it.

The reporter walked into the camp with a hidden camera. The place looked pretty barren with a few beat up trailers. There was a schoolbus which looked like it had been shot up. The reporter encountered 2 black Muslims who were actually kind of friendly. They said they did have guns and occasionally shot them off when celebrating weddings. Yeah right. The report mentioned the financial problems one of the leaders was having and how the IRS had confiscated his business.

The reporter confronted him with the recent internet report from the Northeast Intelligence Network… they laughed and said it was all a product of the Jew media. They also hinted that 9/11 was a part of some larger Jewish conspiracy. They brought up the tired misrepresentation that the Air Force was ordered to stand down on the morning of 9/11, apparently to allow the attack.

They also spoke with a couple of townspeople. One gentleman said prior to 9/11 he had seen them training in fatigues but said they had been relatively quiet since. A local sheriff said they basically keep to themselves and aren’t a bother.

The people that Fox 5 interviewed in the compound are followers of Sheikh Syed Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, the charismatic fundamentalist Pakistani Islamic leader, and founder of Jamaat ul-Fuqra. CP’s latest report on the group is here. It’s the same organization that has several compounds here in Virginia, as I reported last October.

The Islamberg people may be just regular folks like you and me, members of our great national rainbow coalition, misunderstood and misrepresented by the media, with their unfortunate anti-semitic comments taken totally out of context. But I wouldn’t bet on it. To recap the sheikh’s background, I remind you of the 2002 article in The Weekly Standard:

Fuqra’s founder and chief, the man [Daniel] Pearl sought to interview, is a rotund Kashmiri of Sufi background with long-standing ties to Pakistan’s Interservice Intelligence Agency (ISI), Sheikh Mubarik Ali Hasmi Shah Gilani. At least until President Musharraf’s decision last fall to support the American war on terrorism, the ISI sponsored terrorist training camps in Pakistan and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Sheikh Gilani has rubbed shoulders at international terrorist confabs with gunslingers from Hamas and Hezbollah, their mullah backers, and Osama bin Laden. And he has trained fighters for the battlefields of Kashmir, Chechnya, and Bosnia.

Gilani launched his U.S. operations in 1980. Within ten years, Fuqra’s communes were billing themselves as havens where Muslim converts — many of them inner-city blacks, sometimes recruited in prison — could build new lives. At least seven such communities are active today, in Hancock, N.Y.; Red House, Va.; Tulare County, Calif.; Commerce, Ga.; York, S.C.; Dover, Tenn.; and Combermere, Canada. While some of these enclaves contain only rudimentary buildings and trailers, the California compound has 300 residents on a 440-acre spread, according to a recent report by a local ABC station. Residents deny any involvement with terror, but Fuqra has a history of getting into trouble with the law.

Over the years, at least a dozen Fuqra members have been convicted of crimes including conspiracy to commit murder, firebombing, gun smuggling, and workers’ compensation fraud in the United States or Canada. And Fuqra members are suspects in at least 10 unsolved assassinations and 17 firebombings between 1979 and 1990. Nor is Fuqra’s criminal activity all in the past. In the last year alone, a resident of the California compound was charged with first degree murder in the shooting of a sheriff’s deputy; another was charged with gun smuggling; the state of California launched an investigation into the fate of more than a million dollars in public funds given to a charter school run by Fuqra leaders; and two residents of the Red House community were convicted of firearms violations, while a third awaits trial.

I hope that local TV reporter knew what he was getting into when he walked into Islamberg. A reading of his tea leaves might show the Federal Witness Protection Program in his future.


Update: CP has a post up about this. He’s got a lot more detail than I do, because the reporter actually talked to him.

…they were approached and spoke to a couple of the compound’s residents. Asking to see “the boss,” they were told he was in the city and wouldn’t be back until later, but then he showed up rather mysteriously. “The boss” was Hussain Abdallah, reportedly one of the early organizers of Fuqra in the United States and the guy that runs “786 Security” in Brooklyn. Abdallah said that his business had been raided by the IRS in Dec. 03 and the case was in process. The reporter said that a legal search of judgements or liens might turn something up. He owes something like $300K to the Feds and $40-50K to the state in taxes.

Go over and read the whole thing.

Assaulted by Jamaat ul-Fuqra

Gates of Vienna has reported many times about the phenomenon of Jamaat ul-Fuqra in the United States. You will find a partial listing of these reports at the bottom of this post.

A short version: Under the cover of its front organization known as the Muslims of America, the terrorist organization Jamaat ul-Fuqra operates — among many others — a rural compound in Red House, which is in northern Charlotte County, Virginia. The founder and leader of Jamaat ul-Fuqra is Sheikh Syed Mubarik Ali Gilani, and the residents of the Red House compound have named the muddy track that snakes through their compound “Sheikh Gilani Lane”. It is the officially-designated county name for the road, and in defiance of repeated protests by the Christian Action Network, the Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to keep the name as it is.

CAN has obtained a training video made by Sheikh Gilani that details his mission of jihad, and this is what led to an incident recently at the Red House compound. The video of the assault on the Christian Action cameraman speaks for itself:


“The Muslims of America” poses as a peaceful and beneficent religious group, no different from a Methodist prayer circle or the Knights of Columbus. But the “Soldiers of Allah” video reveals that Sheikh Gilani’s organization is something more sinister, and his disciples have every reason to be concerned about the truth leaking out.

A listing of Jamaat ul-Fuqra and MOA links is below the jump.
- - - - - - - - -
The Christian Action Network and Jamaat ul-Fuqra:

• A Report From Islamberg
  
• Signs of Denial in Charlotte County
  
• MSM Digest: Sheikh Gilani Lane
  
• “Gilani Lane Is Insane!”
  
• The Charlotte County Files
  
• Jamaat ul-Fuqra in Georgia — From the Air
  
• The Muslims of America Speak Up
  
• Running Scared in Red House
  
• A Sixth-Century Sheikh Gilani?
  
• Charlotte County Votes to Keep the Sheikh
  
• A Visit With Virgil Goode
  
• A Bird’s-Eye View of Jamaat ul-Fuqra
  
• Reining in the CAIR Treatment
  
• A Stroll Down Gilani Lane
  
• Taking Action in Lynchburg and Beyond

Other posts on Jamaat ul-Fuqra:

• Virginia Part 1
  
• Virginia Part 2
  
• Virginia Part 3
  
• HQ: Hancock, NY
  
• In California
  
• In South Carolina
  
• More on JF at The Politics of CP

Sheikh Gilani’s Money Pipeline

Khadijah Ghafur is a follower of Sheikh Gilani, the Pakistani founder of the Muslims of America and Jamaat ul-Fuqra. She herself established the Jamaat ul-Fuqra compound known as “Baladullah” in rural California. Last August a California Superior Court judge sentenced her to fourteen years in prison for embezzling money from a chain of charter schools that she established.

It was a classic Fuqra operation — scam the government for a lot of cash, and then use it… for what?

The Mercury News has been investigating that exact question:

Where did the money go?

The answer could lie in evidence never introduced in court. The Mercury News has learned of several overseas fund transfers, a mysterious letter and a web of connections between Ghafur and an obscure Pakistani cleric known as Sheikh Syed Mubarik Ali Gilani.

Supporters say Gilani is a charitable teacher and spiritual leader who promotes self-improvement. But over the years, state and federal authorities have described him as the head of an international terrorist group who draws financial support from followers in the United States.

Ghafur was a shrewd operator. The charter school business looked like a golden opportunity to her:
- - - - - - - - - -

Ghafur, the community’s matriarch, had lofty ideas and a knack for getting people to embrace them. She impressed Fresno school officials in 1998 with her plans for a charter school serving low-income families.

California was then in the vanguard of a national movement. New rules opened the door for community groups to create schools and operate them with public funds.

“We all wanted to believe in what they were doing, what they said they intended to do,” said Marilyn Shepherd, then-director of charter schools with the Fresno district.

Ghafur opened the first Gateway Academy charter school in Fresno in 2000. There was another campus housed in a ramshackle building at Baladullah.

In less than a year, Ghafur had built an empire of a dozen campuses around the state, mostly by affiliating with existing private schools. In official documents, Gateway projected a 2001-02 enrollment of 1,400 students.

The number would never reach more than half that.

[…]

Fresno school district officials, meanwhile, were becoming concerned. A Gateway campus had reported 100 percent attendance — a rarity at any school — on a day when Shepherd visited and found the classrooms closed. Gateway also was reporting an unexplained operating deficit of $1.3 million. Fresno officials asked the state Department of Justice for help.

The assignment went to Special Agent Thomas Win, a veteran white-collar crime investigator based in Fresno. Win, 46, is genial and intensely focused, the kind of cop who favors Hawaiian shirts on his own time but wears a crisp suit and tie to work. It didn’t take him long to discover that Ghafur had 29 bank accounts. To him, the sheer number signaled that someone might be moving money around surreptitiously.

Poring through records with a forensic accountant, Win found evidence that Ghafur used money from the school to repay debts, including loans for the purchase of Baladullah and other property.

The evidence would persuade a jury in July 2006 to convict Ghafur on 13 counts of grand theft, misappropriation, fraud and tax evasion.

But there was a lot more money unaccounted for.

The number of accounts and the flow of money made Win suspect “structuring” — an illegal ploy to move large sums without detection, by keeping individual transactions below $10,000, the minimum level before banks must report to the federal government.

But it was the destination that raised Win’s eyebrows. Ghafur had transferred the money to her husband, Salih Ghafur, in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Anyone who studies Sheikh Gilani notices that the man likes money. Lots of it. According to sources, members of Jamaat ul-Fuqra are required to send thirty percent of their income to their spiritual master in Pakistan. Tithing is not good enough for the sheikh!

Sheikh Gilani also has a thriving online business selling his tapes and books, complete with Paypal and shopping carts.

So what does he use all that money for?

Analysts who study the Alice in Wonderland world of Pakistani extremist groups say Gilani has supported Muslim insurgents in the disputed Chinese-Pakistani-Indian region of Kashmir. In recruiting videos from the 1980s, seized by authorities, Gilani boasted that he provided “highly specialized training in guerrilla warfare” and encouraged anyone interested in joining to contact the Muslims of the Americas.

Which brings us right back to Charlotte County, Virginia, and the Muslims of America compound in Red House. This part might sound familiar to the people of Charlotte County:

Baladullah wasn’t just a residential enclave, though about 100 men, women and children lived there in mobile homes. It’s unclear whether everyone there was a Gilani follower, and some would later deny that Baladullah was officially connected to Gilani. But a sign out front announced it was also a campus of International Qur’anic Open University, the educational arm of Gilani’s movement.

Although the nearest neighbor was miles away, the property was surrounded by a fence and occasionally guarded by young men with guns.

Regular readers of this blog know this setup. It’s the standard modus operandi for Jamaat ul-Fuqra.

Here are some words about Sheikh Gilani’s people that the Charlotte County Board of Supervisors might want to ponder:

In an internal planning document, the Department of Homeland Security listed Jamaat ul-Fuqra in 2005 among a handful of U.S.-based Islamist organizations that “require continued monitoring.”

The document, first disclosed by Congressional Quarterly, said Ul-Fuqra has 1,000 to 3,000 members and “continues to conceal its activities and prepare itself for a possible confrontation with U.S. authorities.” [emphasis added]

The leader of this group has a road named after him in Charlotte County. The Board of Supervisors voted last week to affirm that name and retain it on the county road sign.

The Sheikh lives well enough on his American cash cow. But he has other uses for the money as well:

Canadian authorities say Ul-Fuqra leaders are actively recruiting North Americans “to send regular donations in support of Fuqra jihad activities in Kashmir,” according to a classified Canadian government report quoted by the National Post newspaper in June.

“It is very clear” that Gilani gets money from his American followers “for supporting Kashmiri militants and establishing the network of the Qur’anic University,” said Mohammad Amir Rana, who tracks extremist groups for a Lahore think tank, the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies.

So the money trail leads from the pockets of American taxpayers through the members of Jamaat ul-Fuqra in the United States into the hawala network and eventually gets to Sheikh Gilani in Pakistan, where it is put to good use slaughtering infidels in Kashmir. Blowing up buses and schools. Kidnapping. Massacring entire villages. Ethnic cleansing.

Nice call, Charlotte County.


Hat tip: B.O., via email.

Minding Their Own Business

Commenter “Sallysot” arrived belatedly at one of our Jamaat ul-Fuqra posts and left the following comment:

I am from the “bustling metropolis” of Red House, Va, and I only have this to say about the compound there. Those people have lived there all these years minding their own business. They are seldom seen out in the community. They live in poverty, they do not beg, borrow or steal as far as I can tell from anyone. Seems as though they want to be left alone, as they leave everyone else alone. We may not like the idea of them here, but, they have given us no direct reason to hate them.

This was my response:

The people in the MOA compound have indeed been “minding their own business”. The question for law-enforcement and domestic counterterrorism is, “What kind of business? Should we be concerned about it?”

They send their boys to school, but not their girls. Isn’t that a little worrisome?

People in Jamaat ul-Fuqra have been convicted of murder, conspiracy, gun-running, money-laundering, welfare fraud, and other offenses. According to the blog “Exposing the Fuqra”, people in the Meherrin compound (just down the road from you) were routinely flogged for religious offenses. They were just minding their own business when they did that; it was part of their business.

I suggest that you read the blogs The Politics of CP and Exposing the Fuqra for more information on JF. They have some hair-raising things to report.

Sallysot has brought up an important issue, one that has been debated here in previous Jamaat ul-Fuqra discussions. Since her comment is on a long-dormant thread, I’ll review the issue here.

Weird religious groups have a Constitutional right to be left alone. The Branch Davidian fiasco demonstrated the dangers of federal interference in the affairs of fringe religions. As long as a group violates no federal, state, or local laws it should be left undisturbed.

As long as it violates no laws – there’s the catch. What goes on in one of those compounds, behind the fence and beyond the gate and guardpost, may not be easily visible to anyone outside.

The Bill of Rights is not an absolute in all circumstances. Parents have no right to horribly abuse their children behind closed doors in their own house – the rights of the children trump the parents’ right to be left alone. Conspirators may not foment sedition and plot insurrection in church basements, even though the First Admendment protects their right to practice their religion unmolested.

The problem lies in how to determine what goes on behind those fences. At the one extreme are the Gates of Vienna commenters who want to raid all Muslim compounds and kill or deport all the Muslims. On the other extreme is Sallysot, who wants them to be left entirely alone.

Obviously, any respect for the concept of civil liberties precludes the first, and simple prudence precludes the second. How to find the happy medium?

As far as government action is concerned, the track record of a group, plus its stated ideological propensities, may cause it to be placed under heightened scrutiny. Jamaat ul-Fuqra has a well-established history of dangerous criminal activity, in addition to the stated goals of its leader; this should be enough to make the authorities sit up and take notice. For our sake, I hope the feds are keeping a close eye on Red House and all the other compounds.

But I wouldn’t trust my security solely to the government. The track record of the FBI is not encouraging, and the bloated bureaucratic beast known as the Department of Homeland Security is not one to inspire confidence.

That doesn’t mean that I think that the citizens of Red House should form a torchlight-and-pitchforks brigade and storm the MOA compound (Mussolini, I can hear you out there salivating, but no; we can’t do it). On the other hand, we can do our part as citizens by observing, being alert, and keeping the authorities informed.

And that’s what I’m recommending here. That’s what CP and I are doing. Until last October, there had been virtually no new information about Jamaat ul-Fuqra available on the internet for three years or more. All that has changed: there has been an explosion of blog-based investigation of JF and the Muslims of America, with CP leading the charge. The Sheikh’s followers can no longer skulk silently through the shadows.

Let’s continue watching them. We can pool our information here and on other blogs, without ever violating anyone’s Constitutional rights.

Keep the searchlight on Jamaat ul-Fuqra. One hand shading the eyes means one less hand to do the devil’s work.

Jamaat ul-Fuqra in Virginia, Part 1

 
During the Beltway Sniper crisis, back in the fall of 2002, a series of articles in The Washington Times described John Allen Muhammad’s conversion to Islam, and his later break with the Nation of Islam (the articles are no longer available, but extracts have been preserved here). Apparently the NOI was not militant enough for Mr. Muhammad, and he left it to become involved with a group called Jamaat ul-Fuqra (Arabic for “community of the impoverished”), a terrorist organization founded by a notorious Pakistani cleric, Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani.

What drew my eye in the article was the mention of a Jamaat ul-Fuqra compound in Red House, Virginia. Red House?! I know Red House — a small village in rural Charlotte County.


Ever since then I’ve been curious to know more about the Red House compound. This past Saturday afternoon, carrying a digital camera and a great apprehension about possible encounters with some reportedly very dangerous people, I drove up there.

But first: some background on Jamaat ul-Fuqra. The group was founded in New York by Sheikh Gilani in New York in 1980. Its current headquarters is in Hancock, New York, and it has various compounds, or Jamaats, scattered throughout the United States and Canada, notably in Colorado, New York, Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia. Most of the adherents are reported to be American-born Black Muslims who follow a strict Islamist ideology.

Sheikh Gilani, you may remember, is the cleric with whom Daniel Pearl had arranged an interview back in January of 2002. Unfortunately, Mr. Pearl was betrayed by his sources, and then abducted and beheaded. Sheikh Gilani was arrested later that month and languishes in Pakistani custody.

So this is the kind of people we are dealing with here. They launder money, smuggle firearms, plan and carry out assassinations and bombings, and conduct intense Islamist indoctrination, including inside American prisons.

According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal:

The JF, in its early phase, sought to counter what is perceived as excessive Western influence on Islam. It also concluded that violence was a significant aspect in its quest to purify Islam. In its ideological moorings, the Fuqra regards as enemies of Islam all those who do not follow the tenets of Islam as laid out in the Koran, including those Muslims who they consider as heretics as well as non-Muslims. One of Gilani’s works published by the Quranic Open University in the US and seized in a 1991-investigation instructed his cadres that their foremost duty was to wage Jehad against the ‘oppressors of Muslims’. Members of the group are described as Islamist extremists with much hatred toward their ‘enemies’.

Fuqra members were actively conducting jihad operations across North America in the ’80s and ’90s:

	In the 1980s, they carried out various terrorist acts, including numerous fire-bombings across the United States. JF’s early targets in North America were ethnic Indians and targets linked to various Indian sects. In July 1983, Stephen Paul Paster, a front ranking JF member, was responsible for planting a pipe bomb at a Portland hotel owned by followers of the Bhagwan Rajneesh cult. After his arrest in Colorado, Paster served four years of a 20-year prison sentence for the bombing…
	After the Portland bombing, two Fuqra cadres allegedly killed Mozaffar Ahmad, a leader of the minority Ahmadiyyah sect in Canton, Michigan. Both the suspects reportedly perished in a fire they had set at the Ahmadiyyah mosque in nearby Detroit. The JF is also reported to have been involved in the killing of three Indians on August 1, 1984 in a suburb of Tacoma, Washington. Besides, the JF is suspected to be involved in a series of fire bombings of Hindu and Hare Krishna temples in Seattle, Denver, Philadelphia and Kansas City.
	US officials in 1989, during a search of a storage locker in Colorado Springs, recovered a large cache of armaments and documents with multiple links to the JF… The documents, including maps and lists, contained details of potential JF targets and victims in Los Angeles, Arizona and Colorado––oil and gas installations and electrical facilities, US. Air Force Academy and other military sites, people in 12 US states and Canada with Jewish or Hindu-sounding names. Various JF publications were seized during this search. Titles of some of the publications seized included "Guerrilla Warfare", "Counter Guerrilla Operations", "Understanding Amateur Radio", and "Fair Weather Flying," and "Basic Blueprint Reading and Sketching."
	In 1991, JF’s plans to bomb an Indian cinema and a Hindu temple near Toronto were unsuccessful. Five JF cadres were arrested at the Niagara Falls border crossing after US Customs agents searched their cars and found visual evidence and plans of the interiors of the targets and a description of time bombs…
	In the 1990s, JF was more often than not operating under the guise of two front groups, ‘Muslims of the Americas’ and ‘Quranic Open University’. The latter portrayed itself as a religious and charitable educational institution dedicated to studying the Quran.
	[…]
	One of the persons convicted in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 was Clement Rodney Hampton-el, a Fuqra member. JF was linked in a Congressional testimony to the planning of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
	[…]
	A media report has indicated that the JF is also being probed for links with Richard Reid, a Briton, accused of trying to use explosives in his shoes to blow up a Paris-to-Miami jetliner on December 22, 2001.

A Defense Watch article in 2002 outlines the activities of the Red House compound:

	Surveillance reports of the compounds note that the residents remain in a fluid state and are continuously on the move. For the past several years, law enforcement authorities observing the Red House, VA compound have voiced concern that this pattern may be designed to create a series of safe houses in the rural areas of southern Virginia.
	[…]
	The Red House, Va., compound was under surveillance by law enforcement prior to the 9/11 attacks for stockpiling weapons. Three members of the compound, including leader Vincente Pierre and his wife Tracy Upshur, were later arrested for illegal arms purchases.

A February 2002 article in The Daily Excelsior of India reported that

	Muslims of the Americas operates communes of mostly black, American-born Muslims in Binghamton, New York; Badger California; York, South Carolina; and Red House, Virginia, law enforcement officials said. But there are also some non-Muslims in the group.
	The money laundering scheme in Virginia, officials said, is similar to a 101-acre Colorado operation that was shut down in 1993.
	Five Al-Fuqra members were convicted there of defrauding the Government of approximately 350,000 dollars through bogus workers’ compensation claims.

But the most alarming aspect of ul-Fuqra is its propensity for violent and radical jihad:

	Doug Wamsley, a deputy district attorney in Jeferson county, Colorado, who participated in raiding the 101-acre commune in Colorado, said the initial search of the commune turned up bombs, weapons and plans for terrorist atacks.
	"When we executed our search warrants," he said, "we found a cave with 30 firearms in it. Most of those firearms were military knockoffs, like AK-47s. We also found ammunition—6000 rounds."

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
So this is all I knew as I drove through Rustburg toward Red House on a gloomy Saturday afternoon.

Red House is a crossroads hamlet with two stores, one of them a modern truck plaza with multiple pump canopies and a convenience store, and the other a traditional little country story with a couple of pumps in front and an unpaved parking lot. I chose the latter store to visit, since it seemed more likely to be a source of local news and gossip.

After waiting in line at the counter, I asked the proprietor if he had heard of Jamaat ul-Fuqra, an Islamist organization. He looked at me blankly. I mentioned that they had a compound near Red House, on Route 615.

“Oh, you mean the Muslims,” he said. “They come in here sometimes.”

I asked him where they were, and he indicated that they were about three miles east on Route 615. “They’ve got a sign up — you can’t miss it.”

He seemed reluctant to give further information on the subject, perhaps not wanting to gossip to a stranger about his (presumably well-armed) neighbors and customers.

However, outside the store I struck up an acquaintance with a local woman named Shirley. I showed her some of the printouts I had made from web articles about ul-Fuqra, and she was very interested; she proved to have a wealth of local lore on the subject.

As far as Shirley could recall, the commune has been in that location for at least ten years. She said that back before September 11th the members of Jamaat would appear from time to time in the community wearing Islamic garb (robes and head coverings), but mostly only the males. According to Shirley,

It made me so mad, what the county let them get away with. They sent the boys to school, but not the girls — the girls stayed home at the compound.

But why didn’t the county do something about it?

I think they were scared of them.

Didn’t they even send Social Services in there to check on them?

No, I don’t think they did anything. Supposedly they’re “home-schooled,” but who knows?

Two or three weeks before 9/11, the members of the compound constructed a guard house and a gate at the entrance to their commune. After 9/11 and the FBI arrests, they kept a lower profile. According to the store owner, they still come in from time to time, but he doesn’t see them very often. The men dress in normal clothes now, but when the women come to the village they still wear the hijab.

Shirley said that there are other Jamaat locations besides the compound. One of her hobbies is historical research, and recently she was tracking down old homesteads in the wilds of Charlotte County. Her maps led her down a back-country lane, a non-state route through the wilderness that required a four-wheel drive to negotiate. When she neared the old homesteads she was looking for, she was surprised to find an establishment with a sign that identified it as a “Training Camp for Young Muslim-American Men.”

There were a lot of men there, and some boys, and they came up to us to ask us what we were doing. I was a little bit scared, you know, asking their permission to go back and look at the ruins of the house. They weren’t real helpful, just pointed us in the general direction. We never did find the place.

This “training camp” was across Route 615 and a couple of miles from the main compound on Rolling Hill Road.

According to Shirley, Jamaat ul-Fuqra operated some kind of jewelry-and-essential-oils business at a kiosk at a Lynchburg Mall. A friend of hers who worked at UPS reported that the men running the kiosk would come in to collect C.O.D. packages from New York, and pay for them with large amounts of cash. Her friend didn’t understand how they could acquire such quantities of money from the kind of business they ran at the Mall.

I floated the idea that it might be a money-laundering operation. Perhaps they brought in drugs from their Central Asian contacts, and then laundered the money to buy their firearms and run their camps. Pure speculation on my part, but…

What we do know is that an organization with a history of violence had set up shop locally, refused to let its girl children go to school, and had top members arrested and convicted by the FBI for firearms violations. In addition they have set up a remote and isolated “Training Camp for Young Muslim-American Men” — to train young men for what? Auto repair? The food service industry? I have my doubts.

Shirley offered an additional tantalizing piece of information: there is yet another Muslim school, about 30 miles south of Red House in a little town called Randolph.

It’s way out in the middle of nowhere, and you can’t see it from the road, but there’s a sign that says, “American Muslim College.”

After exchanging contact information with Shirley, I got back in my car, went through the crossroads, and headed up the Rolling Hill Road towards the compound. Along the way I passed the Red House Volunteer Fire Department, the Mt. Zion Baptist Church, the Beautiful Zion Baptist Church, and numerous modest little houses, double-wides, and trailers, with pickup trucks and boats out front and dog kennels in the back, the normal human landscape of rural Southside Virginia. As I came around a bend I saw the compound ahead. There was a big green sign near the road in Arabic and English, with a little cinderblock guardhouse next to it flying an unidentifiable flag. Beyond the entrance numerous trailers were scattered across the hillside, fairly close together in fields of waist-high unkempt weeds. No one was in sight.

I noticed the road sign at the entrance: “Sheikh Gilani Lane,” just as described in the South Asia Terrorism Portal article.

I was already quite scared, and there was a car behind me, so I didn’t stop. I continued along 615 until a side road afforded an opportunity to turn off. The car behind me kept on going — Whew! No ul-Fuqra people were after me.

I turned around and headed back towards the compound, and slowed when I approached the entrance, but this time there was a car pulling out of the compound as I got there. Once again, I continued on past the entrance and went on a mile or two until I could turn around.

The third time past I felt very conspicuous, so I balanced the camera on the steering wheel and tried to take a picture as I very slowly passed the entrance. Unfortunately, in my fumbling, I took a small video segment of the entrance instead by mistake, from which I was able to obtain the blurry screenshot shown below. You can see the sign, the guardhouse, and the flag, but, unfortunately, I couldn’t make the sign legible.

I wanted to try for a photo of the “Sheikh Gilani Lane” sign, so I drove down and turned around one more time for a fourth pass. This time I had a car coming up behind me, and this was my last chance. So I took a hurried photo through the windshield, but the gathering gloom of the storm plus the slight motion of the car made the result useless.

These results are less than satisfactory, but they will have to do.



Update: Welcome, Belmont Club and Tigerhawk and Instapundit readers! Sorry I haven't been able to keep up in the comments.

There are a lot of interesting comments; go and look at all of them. But the best one so far is this Virtual Earth image link sent by PoliticalCP. His blog post is here.