This is a follow-up on yesterday’s front page article about Robert Doggart, the failed congressional candidate whose plot to attack innocent Muslims In Delaware County, NY was foiled by federal agents.

In that thread I mentioned that there’s more than one Islamberg—the one in Texas that I wrote about last year and the one in New York that Doggart was planning to attack—this is about a third one in South Carolina called Holy Islamville. As with the others, local police have had no problems with them.

An article just came in through my Google Alerts this evening mentioning Islamville. In light of reports on Doggart’s plan to massacre Muslims, the York County Sheriff, Bruce Bryant, has made it clear that he’s having none of that:

There is “no truth at all,” he said, to rumors or media reports that there has ever been a Muslim training ground at Holy Islamville.
—Sheriff Bruce Bryant”This guy who wanted to cause chaos in New York, who planned to go after innocent people and also was targeting law enforcement who tried to stop him - we will not tolerate that in York County,” he said. “The people who live at Islamville, and the people who gather at Islamville, they are citizens of America, this state and York County, and we will do everything we can to protect them as we would for any other resident of York County.” […]

Islamville residents have kept an “open relationship” with law enforcement for three decades, Bryant said, and his officers routinely visit the community. There is “no truth at all,” he said, to rumors or media reports that there has ever been a Muslim training ground at Holy Islamville.

“That is plainly untrue,” Bryant said. “There has never been any kind of training camp, obstacle course or anything there. As far as York County law enforcement is concerned, there is no threat there and never has been a threat.

“York County residents need to know that these people are a part of the community, and that the community is safe.”

Islamville residents deserve and will receive equal treatment from police in York County, he said.

“I do not believe what they believe concerning religion,” Bryant said, “but these are people who live in York County who will be treated with respect and who will receive the best that the York County Sheriff’s Office can offer. Freedom of religion is guaranteed in this country. This is America.” […]

More: York County Sheriff Vows to Protect Islamville Muslims After Plot to Attack Similar N.Y. Community

Compare the above with reports by Clarion—there are several, but here’s a screenshot of one from 2013 (see “Update” info at end of post) which describes Islamville as a site “run by a radical group named Muslims of the Americas (MOA),” which they assert has connections to a terrorist group in Pakistan called Jamaat ul-Fuqra (JF for short).

If you Google JF’s name you’ll mostly get links to to right-wing sites screeching about impending doom and dhimmitude, however buried in there is also an article from October 2008 written by the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point. I wrote about the CTC back in 2013, if you want to know more about them. They didn’t seem to reach any concrete conclusion about the attitudes of JF/MOA at the time of the writing.

A quick search of the CTC site turned up four additional articles, the most recent (from 2010) with regard to someone named Clement Rodney Hampton-El:

A member of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing conspiracy, Hampton-El was convicted in 1996 with the “blind shaykh,” `Umar `Abd al-Rahman, and others in connection with the “Day of Terror” plot against New York City landmarks. […]

https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/american-journeys-to-jihad-u-s-extremists-and-foreign-conflicts-during-the-1980s-and-1990s

I could find no mention of Hampton-El after that. Presumably he’s either dead or sitting in a federal prison somewhere.

The SPLC wrote an article on them as well back in 2002. It too mentions Hampton-El, his time in Afghanistan, and his involvement with the 1993 WTC bombing. Included is discussion of Jilani (sometimes spelled Gilani in other articles). There was also a bunch of stuff about white supremacists & the NOI, but my eyes were starting to glaze over by the time I got to that part so I quit reading. A quick search only returned the report linked to above along with three other articles in which JF was only mentioned in comments, not the articles themselves.

Last but not least, the ADL wrote a profile on them 22 years ago, back in 1993 (PDF). A search of the ADL’s website returns five additional articles, all from their archives with the most recent being from 2002. I only skimmed the articles, but they seemed primarily concerned with antisemitism—not surprising since that’s a big part of the ADL’s mission. I don’t know if the absence of more recent articles means they have ceased expressing such things, but I would assume so since the ADL isn’t shy about pointing out antisemitism. In any event, antisemitism—as noxious as it is—isn’t tantamount to terrorism.

So who should we believe? The scaremongers from The Clarion Project and Fox News? Should we make an assessment based on old reports by the CTC, SPLC and ADL, or do we listen to current local law enforcement in SC, NY and TX who say there’s nothing to be concerned about? I obviously can’t answer that for you, all I can do is share what I’ve found and point out that it seems the group and its communes have been largely quiet & law abiding for quite some time now.

I’m sure there’s more that could be dug up, not the least of which is info on the websites & organizations dedicated to demonizing Muslims and pushing fear (and the connections between them), but I have a life and a full time job, so the info above is all I have time for right now.

That’s all. For now…

P.S. Let me kow if you find any typos and I’ll correct them in the AM. I’m to tired to proofread right now. TIA.

Related:

Failed Congressional Candidate Pleads Guilty to Plotting Attack on MuslimsThe Texas “Islamist Terror Enclave” That Wasn’t

I removed donotlink.com URL as it no longer works and replaced with screenshot of article, but I won’t link directly to Clarion (if you want to read the whole article you can find it by googling the title).