I'm not quite sure why this is headline news, since this place has been well known for years, but here we are:

HANCOCK, N.Y. — If you didn't know where to look, you'd probably never find Islamberg, a private Muslim community in the woods of the western Catskills, 150 miles northwest of New York City.

The town, sitting on a quiet dirt road past a gate marked with No Trespassing signs, is home to an estimated 100 residents. There are small houses and other buildings visible from the outside, but it is what can't be seen from beyond the gate that has some watchers worried.

Islamberg was founded in 1980 by Sheikh Syed Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, a Pakistani cleric who purchased a 70-acre plot and invited followers, mostly Muslim converts living in New York City, to settle there.Federal authorities say Gilani was also one of the founders of Jamaat al-Fuqra, a terrorist organization believed responsible for dozens of bombings and murders across the U.S. and abroad. The group was linked to the planning of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and 10 years earlier a member was arrested and later convicted for bombing a hotel in Portland, Ore.

[...]

Shoe bomber Richard Reid has been linked to the group, along with convicted D.C. sniper John Allen Muhammad. But it is Sheikh Gilani who creates the most controversy and concern.

Gilani has told his followers that "Zionist plotters" plan to rule the world, and he encourates them to leave America's cities and avoid the "decadence of a godless society." Gilani is the man American reporter Daniel Pearl was trying to interview in Pakistan when he was kidnapped and beheaded. The Sheikh was taken into custody and later released by Pakistani authorities; he denies any involvement in Pearl's murder.

[...]

So basically, we have a report that warns state troopers to look out for citizens exercising their Constitutional rights, and classifies them as possible domestic terrorists - but it's very likely that real terrorists have been allowed to operate in upstate NY for years without anyone saying anything. Oh, and the place was founded by the guy Daniel Pearl was headed to interview when he was kidnapped. But Gilani couldn't have had anything to do with that - after all, he says so.

Yeah, that makes sense.

The full story is here.

Labels: Islam, Islamberg, Jamaat al-Fuqra, Religion of Peace?, Sheikh Syed Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, terrorism, terrorists