Just three weeks after an ISIS-inspired attack on a Muhammad cartoonist event in Garland, Texas, the FBI began circulating an intelligence bulletin that alerts state, federal and local law enforcement about the likelihood of attacks against Muslims by “militia extremists.”
The bulletin, marked “sensitive” and not for distribution without FBI authorization, cites evidence gathered since 2013 that American militia groups are planning attacks on mosques, Islamic centers and possibly individual Muslims.
The document is dated May 28, 2015, and was leaked to Public Intelligence, an online information site committed to exposing government secrets and data. Public Intelligence posted the document on its site Aug. 18.
Named in the bulletin as news sites that provide information that supposedly fuels the militia groups were WND.com, Fox News, the Blaze, Western Journalism Center, Patriot Newswire and Pamela Geller’s blog, AtlasShrugs.com.
Militias fueled by ‘conspiracy theories’
These websites have reported “conspiracy theories” about Islamic terror training camps across the U.S., providing fodder for the militias that want to attack Muslims, the bulletin states. These private Islamic enclaves are operated by Jamaat al-Fuqra, which also goes by the name Muslims of America or MOA.
Interestingly, the FBI confirms in the report that nine MOA enclaves with approximately 1,500 “dedicated members” devoted to radical Pakistani cleric Sheikh Mubarik Ali Gilani do exist in the following U.S. cities: Hancock, N.Y. (headquarters); Coldwater, Michigan; Dover, Tennessee; Sweeney, Texas; Commerce and Odum, Georgia; York, South Carolina; and Red House and Meherrin, Virginia.
But the FBI states that “assertions MOA communities provide terrorist training are unfounded.”
Militias conducting surveillance?
FBI informants “with varying levels of access” report that “militia extremists” have been conducting surveillance of Islamic properties in Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Montana, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Texas, the bulletin states.
The bulletin cites an unidentified source with “good access” who allegedly reported to the FBI in September 2014 that “militia extremists in Mississippi discussed kidnapping and beheading a Muslim and posting video of the attack to the Internet.” The FBI bulletin goes on to say that the Mississippi group “has since disbanded” and no longer exists.
Another FBI informant reported in early 2015 that the leader of a militia extremist group expressed “interest in training members for direct action against ISIS and associated ISIS locations,” the document states.
In the final example cited, the FBI says “militia extremists posted calls over social media to kill Muslims attending worship services and during a public event in 2013, according to a reliable source with direct access to the information.”
The FBI concludes that there are “salient perceptions within militia extremism that contribute toward an anti-Muslim bias.” The FBI says such “bias” against Islam is based on the following beliefs among the “extremists":
- “Islam represents a foreign threat, equivalent to those which emanate from illegal immigration or international terrorism.
- “The President of the United States not only sympathizes with Islamic extremists but directs U.S. Government policy to align with their goals.”
FBI now captured by the left?
The document is significant because it demonstrates how the modern FBI has joined forces with the hard left, including groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, said Islam expert Robert Spencer.
“This is as ridiculous as it is disquieting,” said Spencer, author of the blog Jihad Watch for the David Horowitz Freedom Center and co-author of several books on Islam with Geller.
“Pamela Geller, Fox News, etc., do not incite or approve of or call for violence,” Spencer said. “This demonstrates that the FBI has become so thoroughly compromised that it has accepted the victimhood agenda of Islamic supremacist groups such as the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which labor assiduously to portray those who oppose jihad terror and expose its ideological and religious roots as the ‘right-wing extremist’ equivalent of Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki.”
Spencer added that the “insidious goal of this libel is to stigmatize opposition to jihad terror, so that the jihad can advance unimpeded. That the FBI would be abetting the propagation of this libel is yet another new low for the Obama-era intelligence apparatus.”
‘The priorities are upside down’
Jamie Glazov, host of the Glazov Gang online media outlet that provides information and analysis of the Islamic threat to the West, was also miffed by the FBI bulletin.
“The priorities are upside-down, with all the jihadist violence taking place, right-wing militias are the threat and Muslims are the victims? Give me a break,” Glazov told WND in an email. “Where exactly has anything like this happened?”
Glazov said the FBI action is a natural result of the “unholy alliance” between the far left and Islam.
The goal of this alliance is “completely disarming our society and making us unable to defend ourselves,” he said. “The truth tellers about the threat are slandered and demonized, which empowers jihad and stealth jihad. The perpetrators love to get victim status to weaken their targets. And because the left is in control of the government and cultural discourse, they are getting away with it.”
Part of a ‘sinister agenda’
Geller, who was the target of a foiled Islamic terror attack during the Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, said the document is further proof that the FBI has seriously strayed from its role of protecting Americans from jihadists and other legitimate criminal threats.
“This is an entirely trumped-up problem in service of a frankly sinister agenda,” Geller, a WND columnist and author of “Stop the Islamization of America,” told WND. “There is no significant right-wing militia threat, and neither I nor any of the others mentioned are telling anyone to commit any acts of violence.
“This is just the latest attempt to demonize and marginalize those who dare to speak the truth about jihad violence, and to further the administration’s dangerous fantasies about Islam being a ‘religion of peace’ that is lied about by hatemongers, rather than a religion of violence that is inciting violence and hatred worldwide.
“This is further proof of Obama’s perfidy and treachery. The FBI is targeting those who oppose jihad terror. America is woefully unprepared for the horror of what’s coming.”
WND contacted the FBI with several questions about the bulletin and got the following response from Joshua Campbell, supervisory special agent of the FBI office of public affairs.
“Unfortunately, we are unable to provide any information on the authenticity or contents of the referenced document. Our standard practice is to neither confirm or deny investigations or comment on bulletins provided to law enforcement partners.”
One of the questions WND asked was if he FBI had documented any actual militia attacks on Muslims over the past seven years.
David Kupelian, managing editor of WND, said the FBI’s reported concerns about the “bias” of militia groups – that they believe Islam represents a foreign threat and that President Obama not only sympathizes with Islamic extremists but directs government policy to align with their goals – are not relegated to militia groups.
Muslim attacks on Christians and Jews in Europe and on civilians in Boston and Garland and U.S. military personnel at Fort Hood and in Chattanooga are responsible for driving up these fears, he said.
These are mainstream fears “believed not only by ‘militia extremists’ but by a large percentage of Americans,” Kupelian said.