Jihad Training Under Our Noses

What other country but America would allow armed, closed Islamic compounds within its borders?

Oh sure, it's all perfectly American. Most in the compounds are American citizens, and we have private property rights, rights against unauthorized search and seizure, the right to bear arms. But if we are in a global war on terror, is America off limits from the fight? Is a compound like this on, in the Catskills near Hancock, NY, just all right with us?

A sentry post has been established at the base of the hill.

The sentry, at the time of this visit, is an African American dressed in Islamic garb – a skull cap, a prayer shawl, and a loose fitting shalwat kameez. He instructs us to turn around and leave. “Our community is not open to visitors,” he says.

Behind the sentry and across a small stream stand dozens of inhabitants of the compound – the men wearing skull caps and loose fitting tunics, the women in full burqa. They appear ready to deal with any unauthorized intruders.

The hillside is blighted by rusty trailers that appear to be without power or running water and a number of outhouses. The scent of raw sewage is in the air.

The place is even off limits to the local undertaker who says that he has delivered bodies to the complex but has never been granted entrance. “They come and take the bodies from my hearse. They won’t allow me to get past the sentry post. They say that they want to prepare the bodies for burial. But I never get the bodies back. I don’t know what’s going on there but I don’t think it’s legal.”

On the other side of the hill where few dare to go is a tiny village replete with a make-shift learning center (dubbed the “International Quranic Open University”); a trailer converted into a Laundromat; a small, green community center; a small and rather squalid grocery store; a newly constructed majid; over forty clapboard homes; and scores of additional trailers.

It is home to hundreds – all in Islamic attire, and all African-Americans. Most drive late model SUVs with license plates from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee. The locals say that some work as tollbooth operators for the New York State Thruway, while others are employed at a credit card processing center that maintains confidential financial records.

While buzzing with activity during the week, the place becomes a virtual hive on weekends. The guest includes arrivals from the inner cities of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania and, occasionally, white-robed dignitaries in Ray-Bans from the Middle East.

Venturing into the complex last summer, Douglas Hagmann, an intrepid investigator and director of the Northeast Intelligence Service, came upon a military training area at the eastern perimeter of the property. The area was equipped with ropes hanging from tall trees, wooden fences for scaling, a make-shift obstacle course, and a firing range. Hagmann said that the range appeared to have been in regular use.

Islamberg is not as benign as a Buddhist monastery or a Carmelite convent. Nearly every weekend, neighbors hear sounds of gunfire. Some, including a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, have heard the bang of small explosives. None of the neighbors wished to be identified for fear of “retaliation.” “We don’t even dare to slow down when we drive by,” one resident said.

The report, in The New Media Journal, says Islamburg is not alone:

Additional hamaats have been established in Hyattsville, Maryland; Red House, Virginia; Falls Church, Virginia; Macon, Georgia; York, South Carolina; Dover, Tennessee; Buena Vista, Colorado; Talihina, Oklahoma; Tulane Country [sic, presumably Tulare County], California; Commerce, California; and Onalaska, Washington. Others are being built, including an expansive facility in Sherman, Pennsylvania.

I checked; Sherman PA is not a few miles outside Scranton, which was identified as where the Ft. Dix Six would train on weekends.

Can we assume that the FBI has places like these under continuous surveillance, or should we assume that the politically correct culture that has been dominant at the FBI in recent years is keeping the agency from worrying too much about what armed, black, Islamist Americans are doing behind guarded gates?

The price we pay for freedom in this country is not shutting places like this down immediately. It is right that we're not doing that, but we need to recognize that the cost of allowing home-grown, foreign-funded, anti-American groups to organize and train under the protection of our laws is that we may be killed by them when they decided the time is right to attack.

hat-tip: Real Clear Politics