Seven suspected ‘Islamic fundamentalists’ arrested on slew of charges
By J. PATRICK PEPPER
Times-Herald Newspapers
DEARBORN — The leader of a Detroit mosque was shot and killed in what FBI officials called a shootout at a trucking yard here last Wednesday.
Luqman Ameen Abdullah, 53, imam of the Masjid Al-Haqq mosque, was shot and killed after he allegedly shot an FBI dog during a sting operation on Miller Road just north of Michigan Avenue. Authorities described the situation as a “controlled transaction,” in which four other suspects were taken into custody without incident. The dog, Freddy, later died from the injuries suffered.
Agents also arrested two other men at a different location Wednesday. The actions resulted from a two-year undercover investigation into what the FBI alleges is a group of “violent” “Islamic fundamentalist(s).”
Those arrested face a slew of federal felony charges, ranging from theft from interstate shipments and mail fraud to obtain the proceeds of arson to illegal possession and sale of firearms and tampering with motor vehicle identification numbers. No terrorism charges were included in the complaint.
Arrestees include Mohammad Abdul Salam, aka Gregory Stone, 45, of Detroit; Abdullah Beard, aka Detric Lamont Driver, 37, of Detroit; Abdul Saboor, aka Dwayne Edward Stone, 37, of Detroit; Adam Ibraheem, 38, of Detroit; Garry Laverne Porter, aka Mujahid, 59, of Detroit; and Ali Abdul Raqib, 57, of Detroit.
Those who were charged but not apprehended Wednesday include Mohammed Alsahi, aka Mohammad Palestine, 33, of Ontario; Yassir Ali Khan, 30, of Warren and Ontario; Mujahid Carswell, aka Majuahid Abdullah, 30, of Detroit and Ontario; and Mohammad Abdul Basir, aka Franklin D. Roosevelt Williams, 50, who is already imprisoned on an unrelated conviction at Ojibway Correctional Facility in the Upper Penninsula.
Canadian authorities arrested Carswell on Thursday. Alsahi and Khan remain at large. Authorities consider Alsahi and Khan to be armed and dangerous. Anyone with information regarding the location of these individuals is asked to call the FBI at (313) 965-2323.
According to a 45-page complaint unsealed Wednesday, Abdullah was a high-placed leader of a nationwide radical fundamentalist group of mostly African-American Sunni Muslims, some of whom converted to Islam while in prison. The group, known as “The Ummah” or “The Brotherhood,” has a primary goal of establishing a separate, sovereign Islamic state within the borders of the United States, the complaint alleges.
The group’s leader is said to be Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, the high-ranking 1960s Black Panther Party official formerly known as H. Rap Brown, who is serving a life sentence in a Colorado Supermax prison for the 2002 murders of two police officers.
Investigators allege that Luqman Abdullah and his followers advocated “violent jihad” against government and law enforcement targets including FBI offices in Detroit and government facilities in Washington D.C. To this end, the group frequently practiced martial arts, using firearms and swords and other hand-held weapons, investigators allege.
But in one of the United States’ most densely populated Muslim enclaves, where ties with the law enforcement community historically have been strained, some are greeting the incident with skepticism.
In published reports, Imad Hamad, senior national adviser and regional director of the Anti Arab-American Discrimination Committee, said the case raises questions about the FBI’s use of Muslim undercover informants. In the past, Hamad and other Muslim advocates have accused the agency of using informants for “witch hunts” of innocent Muslims Some of the informants used in the Wednesday’s case have criminal histories.
“The case – regardless of the facts, regardless of the allegations, regardless of what went right and what went wrong – brings back that issue of informants,” Hamad said.