Free The Terrorist Next Door by Erick Stakelbeck

abandoned. A few shack-like houses were scattered along the main road into town, where we stumbled upon the MOA compound.
    Based on the phone conversations I’d had with locals before my trip, I was anticipating something like a scaled-down al-Qaeda training camp, complete with obstacle courses and shooting ranges in plain view.
    Instead, there were rows of run-down trailers separated by laundryfilled clotheslines. A small group of women and children milled about outside; all of them, including the kids, wore ultra-conservative Islamic garb that covered most of their bodies. For the moment, there was not a man in sight. But there was indeed a guard tower at the compound’s entrance, albeit empty and only a few feet above ground level. A large, green “Muslims of America” sign stood below the tower, and several “No Trespassing” signs hung from fencing that enclosed the sprawling, 40-acre community. To my amusement, there was also an American flag hanging from a pole planted in front of the compound. It was added, according to a local source, after 9/11, when many Islamist groups in the United States were donning a patriotic veneer to deflect newfound attention from the authorities. Located at the compound’s entrance was perhaps the most telling symbol of MOA’s purpose, showing why the group’s ownership of an abundance of land across rural America had so aroused my alarm. It was a street sign that looked much like any other except for one major difference: this one bore the name of a man with longstanding ties to global Islamic terrorism.

    Sheikh Gilani Lane was named in honor of Sheikh Mubarak Gilani, the founder of Muslims of America and a man whom MOA members follow with messianic fervor. MOA has close ties to a violent Pakistani Islamist group, also founded by Gilani, named Jamaat al-Fuqra. According to a 1999 U.S. State Department report on terrorism, al-Fuqra “seeks to purify Islam through violence.” 3 Sheikh Gilani serves as al-Fuqra’s and MOA’s ideological bedrock; his images and messages dominate the MOA website. He founded the group during a visit to Brooklyn in 1980, encouraging his pupils—mostly African-Americans—to move to rural areas and establish Muslim communes free of Western decadence. Shoe bomber Richard Reid and Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammad are rumored to have been among his followers. 4
    Gilani also trained jihadists to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s, 5 and he attended a 1993 terrorist conference in Sudan that included members of Hamas, Hezbollah, and yes, Osama bin Laden himself. According to a Weekly Standard account of the conference, “In the evening, large crowds regaled the assembled jihadists with chants of “Down, down USA! Down, down CIA!” and (in Arabic) “Death to the Jews!” 6 As if that weren’t enough, American journalist Daniel Pearl was on his way to interview Gilani in Karachi, Pakistan in 2002 when he was kidnapped by jihadists and brutally murdered . 7 The sheikh denies any connection to Pearl’s killing, but suspicion of his involvement is understandable: in 1990, for instance, Gilani produced a video called “The Soldiers of Allah” in which he instructs his American followers in tactics including guerilla warfare, murdering enemies, hijacking cars, kidnapping, weapons training, and explosives. 8
    Prior to our trip to Red House, I spoke to “Mustafa,” a former MOA member who fled the group and now fears for his life. He told me he and others had lived in Pakistan and were trained in paramilitary tactics by Gilani and the Pakistani military for several months. 9 According to Mustafa, Gilani runs MOA with an iron fist from Lahore, Pakistan, and members almost literally worship him; they believe he is a direct descendant
of Islam’s prophet Mohammed. Moreover, like the founder of Islam, Gilani reportedly kept several wives—including