Detroit - 3 at Large After FBI Raid That Killed Radical Islam Leader

[KRonn]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,570146,00.html?test=latestnews

3 at Large After FBI Raid That Killed Radical Islam Leader


Three people were still on the loose Thursday after the FBI raid and deadly shooting of a radical Islam leader whose goal authorities say was to take down the U.S. government.

Luqman Ameen Abdullah, 53, was killed in a shootout with federal agents in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn as they tried to arrest him on a number of charges including conspiracy to sell stolen goods and the illegal possession and sale of firearms.

Abdullah repeatedly told followers that the U.S. government was their enemy and they should be willing to fight the FBI, even if it meant death, according to the criminal complaint against him.

"You cannot have a nonviolent revolution," Luqman Ameen Abdullah said, according to a 2008 conversation secretly recorded by a confidential FBI source.

Abdullah was killed Wednesday at a warehouse in Dearborn, where agents were attempting to arrest him. FBI spokeswoman Sandra Berchtold said Abdullah refused to surrender, fired a weapon and was killed by gunfire from agents.

He was one of 11 people named in a criminal complaint after a two-year investigation.

Seven of the 10 people charged with Abdullah were in custody, including a state prison inmate, the U.S. attorney's office said. Three still were missing.

Another man not named in the complaint also was arrested.

The FBI will hold a news conference Thursday morning.

More from MyFoxDetroit.com.

The 43-page complaint described Abdullah as an extremist who believed the FBI bombed New York's World Trade Center in 1993 and the Oklahoma City federal building two years later.

Abdullah beat children with sticks at his Detroit mosque, the complaint claimed, and was trained with his followers in the use of firearms, martial arts and swords.

Neither Abdullah nor his co-defendants were charged with terrorism. But he was "advocating and encouraging his followers to commit violent acts against the United States," FBI agent Gary Leone wrote in an affidavit filed with the complaint.

The FBI said Abdullah, also known as Christopher Thomas, was an imam, or prayer leader, of a radical group named Ummah whose primary mission is to establish an Islamic state within the U.S.

Abdullah told followers that it was their "duty to oppose the FBI and the government and it does not matter if they die" and to "simply shoot a cop in the head" if they wanted the officer's bulletproof vest, Leon wrote.

The affidavit also said bombs, guns and even the recipe for TNT were among Abdullah's regular topics with his allies. Group members and former members said they were "willing to do anything Abdullah instructs and/or preaches, even including criminal conduct and acts of violence," the FBI agent wrote.

He and his followers were American born, mostly African-American converts to Islam.

But that description doesn't match what Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Michigan chapter, said he knew of Abdullah.

"He would open up the mosque to homeless people. He used to run a soup kitchen and feed indigent people," Walid said. "I knew nothing of him that was related to any nefarious or criminal behavior."

Walid said Abdullah had a wife and children. A phone number for the family had been disconnected.

Ummah believes that a separate Islamic state in the U.S. would be controlled by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, who is serving a life sentence in a federal prison in Colorado for shooting two police officers in Georgia in 2000, Leone said.

Al-Amin, a veteran of the black power movement, started the group after he converted to Islam in prison.

"They're not taking their cues from overseas," said Jimmy Jones, a professor of world religions at Manhattanville College and a longtime Muslim prison chaplain. "This group is very much American born and bred."

Abdullah's mosque is in a brick duplex on a residential street in Detroit. A sign on the door in English and Arabic reads, in part, "There is no God but Allah." The mosque was located elsewhere in the city until the property was lost in January because of unpaid taxes.

When the eviction took place, a search turned up empty shell casings and large holes in the concrete wall of a "shooting range," Leone said.

The FBI built its case over two years with the help of confidential sources close to Abdullah who recorded conversations and participated in undercover operations involving the sale of furs, laptop computers, televisions, energy drinks and power tools.

Abdullah received at least 20 percent of any profit and claimed the "Prophet Muhammad said that it is okay to participate in theft; as long as that person prays, they are in a good state," Leone wrote in the affidavit.

Imad Hamad, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Dearborn, said the FBI briefed him about the arrests.

"We know that this is not something to be projected as something against Muslims," Hamad said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[DisturbedPervert]

Al-Amin, a veteran of the black power movement, started the group after he converted to Islam in prison.

"They're not taking their cues from overseas," said Jimmy Jones, a professor of world religions at Manhattanville College and a longtime Muslim prison chaplain.

They give them body building equipment AND Muslim clerics?  It's like they're trying to build super criminals

[KRonn]

Al-Amin, a veteran of the black power movement, started the group after he converted to Islam in prison.

"They're not taking their cues from overseas," said Jimmy Jones, a professor of world religions at Manhattanville College and a longtime Muslim prison chaplain.

They give them body building equipment AND Muslim clerics?  It's like they're trying to build super criminals

Heh, really!

[Savonarola]

An epilogue:

Hip-hop concert set to help son of Muslim leader killed by FBI
BY NIRAJ WARIKOO
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

A hip-hop benefit concert featuring rappers from across the U.S. is set for Thursday night in Detroit to help the son of a Muslim leader killed in a shootout in Dearborn with FBI agents.

Mujahid Carswell, one of the sons of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, is a hip-hop MC known as Mu who was part of a group of men charged last month with conspiring to deal in stolen goods. They also are accused of being a member of what federal authorities say is a radical Sunni Muslim group that promotes extremism. Abdullah was killed by federal agents on Oct. 28 in Dearborn while they were attempting to arrest him and members of his group who were allegedly involved in stolen goods.

Family members and supporters of the group say the claims are totally false, and that Abdullah was a man who helped the needy in his neighborhood.

The concert is to raise funds for the legal defense of Carswell, who was arrested in Windsor, Canada. On his Web site, it says that a legal defense fund was set up "to help Mujahid get the best legal counsel available for his federal crime case pending & to lessen the burden of his 100,000 bond fees."

"Mu and his family appreciate any help during this already hard time of grieving for his father Imam Luqman Abdullah," the Web site reads.

Supporters of Abdullah and some advocacy groups have called for an independent investigation in the death of Abdullah.

Andrew Arena, special agent in charge of the FBI's Detroit office, has said that agents acted appropriately in the case. Federal officials have said Abdullah opened fire.

The concert is set for the Shelter and is called "Mu Today...U Tomorrow!" The event, which is to start at 9 p.m., is to feature Professor Griff of the hip-hop group Public Enemy, Paradise the Architect of X-Clan, and others.

Unfortunately I promised CB I'd take her to Orchestra Hall to see the Detroit Symphony Orchestra tomorrow.  I would have like to have heard the well reasoned and thought provoking arguments of Professor Griff. 

[Ed Anger]

lolz

[LaCroix]

An epilogue:

...

Unfortunately I promised CB I'd take her to Orchestra Hall to see the Detroit Symphony Orchestra tomorrow.  I would have like to have heard the well reasoned and thought provoking arguments of Professor Griff.

thanks a lot. now i dont know who to believe. the family of a murdered man who a professor has sided with, or the fbi 

[Savonarola]

thanks a lot. now i dont know who to believe. the family of a murdered man who a professor has sided with, or the fbi 

Professor Griff must have tenure by now; so you can trust him.