Islamville, Rock Hill, York County
South Carolina is home to at least one Fuqra/MOA commune, with a significant number of members living nearby the compound. The site, known as “Islamville,” is the second-most prominent MOA camp.
A Fuqra/MOA “village” named Islamville has existed in Rock Hill in York County since 1982. The village’s website described it as “the very first Islamic shrine in America” named Baitun-Noor Holy Khanaqah, which is “one of the holiest shrines in the world.”[1]
MOA-affiliated sources say that Sheikh Gilani stayed at Islamville in 1989 and traveled from there to visit MOA branches in New York and Colorado. A storage locker belonging to the Colorado camp was raided shortly thereafter, leading to the discovery of weapons, explosives and plans for terrorist attacks. The camp itself was raided in 1992.
A female spokeswoman for Islamville received her “degree” from MOA’s International Quranic Open University by writing a thesis about how a “Satanist-Zionist conspiracy” framed Muslims in the attacks on the World Trade Center.[3]
Paramilitary Training
A December 2010 FBI counter-terrorism report said that “the Muslims of the Americas terrorist organization” has a “jamaat” (private commune) in South Carolina.
The documents confirmed that MOA is an alternative name for Jamaat ul-Fuqra and described the group as “armed and dangerous,” urging personnel to “use extreme caution when dealing with confirmed members or individuals who are believed to be associated with this group.”
Regarding MOA’s jamaats, the FBI reports said, “Organized training is also conducted to include weapons training, tactics, hand-to-hand combat, rappelling, and live-fire exercises.”
A 2001 memo from the Colorado Attorney General stated that Fuqra has a “covert paramilitary training compound” in South Carolina.[4] A 2004 report funded by the Justice Department identifies York County, S.C. as a “training compound” for Muslims of the Americas.[5] A 2006 report for law enforcement on the organization also said that York County, S.C. is home to one of at least seven “covert paramilitary training compounds.”[6]
A secret Fuqra videotape from the early 1990s shows Sheikh Gilani advertising Fuqra’s guerilla warfare training in preparation for waging violent jihad. He tells viewers not to make any copies of the tape because it could be “very bad” if the enemies of Islam find it. He tells viewers interested in taking “one of the most advanced training courses in Islamic military warfare” to contact one of his International Quranic Open University Offices, mentioning one in South Carolina. The film shows Gilani’s followers receiving guerilla warfare training in Pakistan. [7]
Documents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service in 2003 mentioned the MOA compound in South Carolina and said, “MOA members from all compounds also travel to Pakistan for both religious education as well as military style training and operational experience fighting in the Kashmir region of Pakistan.”
In 2010, nearby residents told a local newspaper that they had seen armed guards patrolling Islamville and that they sometimes heard gunfire at night.[8] The sound of gunfire coming from Islamville was recorded in November 2009, March 2011 and May 2011. A local resident reported the sounds of explosions on January 26, 2012 and April 6, 2012.[9] Reports of gunfire by neighbors continue to come to the Clarion Project.
Two neighbors have claimed that a man in full Islamic garb armed with an AK-47 stopped them from stepping on Islamville property when they searched for their dog. They say that four armed men escorted them inside the commune. The Islamville residents also reportedly educate their children in a storage shed.[10]
A source that was inside Islamville took pictures of an alleged weapons stockpile there in 2009 and provided them to Professor Ryan Mauro of the Clarion Project.
A book published by Martin Mawyer in 2012 includes pictures of .50 caliber shells retrieved from Islamville through a separate source.[11]
1990 Declaration of Jihad Against India
An official MOA letter to President Bush written on March 18, 1990 informed the President that the organization had declared that all able-bodied Muslims are obliged to wage jihad against India. It was written and signed by Atiq Shahid, a senior MOA official based in Islamville.
The letter said that MOA would be sending aid to an organization named the Kashmir Freedom Front. It requested that the U.S. government not block MOA members from getting visas to Pakistan so they could wage a “successful struggle.”
Fuqra Fugitives
In 1996, a Fuqra terrorist named Edward Nicholas Laurent Flinton was arrested near Islamville. He had evaded capture for years after taking part in a bomb plot against a Portland hotel in 1983, the bombing of a Hare Krishna temple in Denver in 1984 and the murder of rival Imam Rashad Khalifa in Arizona in 1990.[12] He was arrested at a trailer park in Lake City.[13]
A former member of Fuqra/MOA for nine years claimed to be living at Islamville when Flinton was caught. He said that Sheikh Gilani had ordered them to make sure he wasn’t caught by the police. They panicked that he would tell secret information to the authorities that would lead to the camp being raided. The former member claims they forcibly removed Flinton’s wife from the village as a security precaution.[14]
Flinton later said he moved to the MOA “jamaat” in South Carolina in 1992, saying it had “better” living conditions than the “jamaat” in Baltimore. He was found with fake birth certificates. He claimed not to know about MOA members at Islamville possessing firearms except than the men enjoyed hunting deer. The prosecutors referred to an AK-47 being found.
Frank Nelson, a fugitive who shot a security guard at Long Island college in 1971 wasn’t arrested until September 2005 when he was found living adjacent to Islamville. He converted to Islam and went by the name of “Abdullah Ali.”[1] A registered sex offender also lived in Islamville as of 2007 but moved to Georgia.[2]
Criminal Activity
MOA member James Hobson, who lived at the Baladullah compound in California, was arrested in March 2001 for weapons trafficking between New York and South Carolina.[15]
During the trial of MOA member Vincent Pierre in relation to weapons trafficking in Virginia, ATF Special Agent refers to an ongoing weapons trafficking investigation in York, S.C. The trial took place after the arrest of Hobson, showing that the trafficking in S.C. continued after he was apprehended in 2001.
Documents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service in 2003 refer to a meeting of multiple agencies regarding MOA in April 2003 to compare activity at multiple MOA compounds, including Islamville.
The agencies said all the compounds are interconnected and have members involved in criminal scams “to raise money for MOA/JAF.” The scams include but are not limited to insurance fraud, mail fraud, credit card craud, worker’s compensation fraud, illegal straw purchases of weapons, conversions of semi-automatic weapons to fully-automatic, etc.
The money is sent via mail orders to the “Islamberg” headquarters in New York and Lahore, Pakistan and ultimately ends up with Sheikh Gilani.
A 2005 DEA investigation into Fuqra/MOA-linked drug trafficking in Binghamton, N.Y. involved surveillance of a suspect’s residence in Walton, N.Y. A vehicle from Myrtle Beach, S.C. was seen there.[16]
Islamic Political Party of America
MOA “founding father” Ali Abdur-Rasheed, a leader of the Islamville commune, was an official in the MOA’s Islamic Political Party of America. The entity’s platform and entity was full of extremism and the group had links to a radical group named Jamaat Al-Muslimeen.[17]
[1] “Man Arrested in 1971 Stony Brook Shooting,” 1010Wins.com, reposted on Free Republic, October 5, 2005. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1497174/posts
[2] “Registered Sex Offender Living at ‘Holy Islamville,’” Politics of CP, May 23, 2007. http://politicsofcp.blogspot.com/2007/05/registered-sex-offender-living-at-holy.html
[1] “Intro to Holy Islamville,” Islamville website, http://www.holyislamvillesc.org/about/holy-islamville/holy-islamville-introduction.html
[2] Islamic Post (2011).
[3] Crowley, Zachary. “Jamaat al-Fuqra Dossier,” Center for Policing Terrorism, March 16, 2005.
[4] Memo to National Association of Attorneys General and FBI Denver field office. (2001). Colorado Attorney General’s Office.
[5] Kane, John and April Wall. “Identifying the Links Between White-Collar Crime and Terrorism,” National White Collar Crime Center, September 2004. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/209520.pdf
[6] “Jamaat ul-Fuqra: Gilani Followers Conducting Paramilitary Training in U.S.,” Regional Organized Crime Information Center (dissemination limited to law enforcement), 2006. http://info.publicintelligence.net/ROCICjamaatulfuqra.pdf
[7] The video was originally obtained by PRB Films and clips were shown in the Clarion Project’s documentary, The Third Jihad.
[8] “Neighbors Wary of Muslim Village,” Myrtle Beach Online, April 25, 2010. http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/2010/04/25/1440656/neighbors-wary-of-muslim-village.html
[9] Mauro, Ryan. “Holy Islamville: Paramilitary Training in America’s Backyard,” Clarion Project, April 24, 2012.
[10] Mawyer, Martin. “Twilight in America: The Untold Story of Islamic Terrorist Training Camps Inside America.” (Christian Action Network: 2012).
[11] Mawyer, Martin. “Twilight in America: The Untold Story of Islamic Terrorist Training Camps Inside America.” (Christian Action Network: 2012).
[12] “The Incarceration of Edward Flinton,” Politics of CP, April 4, 2006. http://politicsofcp.blogspot.com/2006/04/incarceration-of-edward-flinton.html
[13] “Terrorism in the United States 1996,” FBI National Security Division: Counterterrorism Threat Assessment and Warning Unit.
[14] The former member of Fuqra/MOA provided many details that were substantiated and briefly had his own blog in 2006 under the name of “Fuqra Hater.”
[15] Sean Webby, Karen de Sa and Brandon Bailey. (2001). Muslim Enclave in California Draws Suspicion from FBI. Associated Press. http://lang.sbsun.com/socal/terrorist/1201/25/terror15.asp
[16] Drug Enforcement Administration documents dated 2005-2007.
[17] For more information about the Islamic Political Party of America, see the section of this website about MOA fronts.