“Respected Imam” killed in FBI shootout

A big FBI shootout at a Detroit mosque is the subject of huge headlines
Radical mosque leader killed in FBI shootout
Feds say goal was Islamic nation in U.S.
on the front page of today’s Detroit Free Press. Luqman Ameen Abdullah, Imam of the Masjid Al-Haqq mosque in Detroit, was killed when he fired at FBI agents, and he appears to have been quite outspoken about the need to use violence in the name of Islam:

Abdullah believed he and his followers were soldiers at war against the government and non-Muslims.
“Abdullah told his followers it is their duty to oppose the FBI and the government and it does not matter if they die,” FBI agent Gary Leone said in an affidavit unsealed Wednesday. “He also told the group that they need to plan to do something.”
Abdullah, 53, of Detroit stayed true to his word Wednesday as armed FBI agents raided a Dearborn warehouse at Michigan Avenue and Miller. Four other suspects surrendered without incident. Authorities said Abdullah refused to surrender, opened fire and then died in a shootout in which an FBI dog also was killed.
“We’re not any fake terrorists, we’re the real terrorists,” Abdullah once boasted to an undercover informant, according to the affidavit.

Because the Detroit Mosque was affiliated with the Ummah (a group headed by the former H. Rap Brown, now serving a life sentence for murdering a police officer), it’s tempting to dismiss the group as kooky domestic radicals:

The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI in Detroit unsealed a 43-page document, however, describing a sinister, radical fundamentalist group allegedly headed by Abdullah. The document notes conversations he had with undercover agents and federal informants that ranged from talking about attacking Super Bowl XL in Detroit to blowing himself up as a final act of courage.
“If they are coming to get to me, I’ll just strap a bomb on and blow up everybody,” he said in a March 21, 2008, conversation.
Federal officials said Abdullah was the leader of a group that calls itself “Ummah, a group of mostly African-American converts to Islam, which seeks to establish a separate Sharia-law governed state within the United States.”
“The Ummah is ruled by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, who is serving a state sentence … for the murder of two police officers in Georgia.”
Brown came to prominence in the 1960s as a leader of the Black Panther Party.
Referring to Abdullah, Leone said in the affidavit, “He regularly preaches antigovernment and antilaw enforcement rhetoric. Abdullah and his followers have trained regularly in the use of firearms and continue to train in martial arts and sword fighting.”

Despite reports of violence against children, criminal activity, and threats to kill FBI agents, a local CAIR official insisted that Abdullah was a “respected Imam.”

Inside the mosque, authorities said, Abdullah conducted firearms training, spewed hate and sometimes violently disciplined children by beating them with sticks.
He beat one boy “so badly with sticks that he was unable to walk for several days,” Leone said in his affidavit.
During the Jan. 20 eviction, police found two firearms and about 40 knives and martial arts weapons in Abdullah’s apartment within the mosque, investigators said.
Authorities said none of the charges levied Wednesday are terrorist-related, but U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg said the case is still under investigation. Abdullah and 11 suspects were charged with felonies including illegal possession and sale of firearms, mail fraud to obtain the proceeds of arson, theft from interstate shipments and tampering with motor vehicle identification numbers.
Seven of the suspects were in U.S. District Court on Wednesday for initial appearances, one was in custody and three were still being sought.
Even as FBI investigators kept tabs on Abdullah through surveillance, he urged his cohorts to learn of the agents’ whereabouts.
“Trail them, follow them, know where they house is at, and everything else,” he told an informant, according to the criminal complaint. “You’ve got hundreds of agents right there off Michigan” Avenue.
The reference was to the McNamara Building, the headquarters of the Detroit FBI.
“The FBI knows that I will kill them,” he said, adding that police also are targets, according to the affidavit.
Imad Hamad, senior national adviser and regional director of the Dearborn-based Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, said he received a call from the head of the FBI’s Detroit office midday to tell him about the raid.
Hamad said FBI Special Agent Andrew Arena told him that the case was “solely criminal” and had to do with “smuggling and fraud.” He said Arena revealed few details of the investigation, but said it had been ongoing for about two years.
Hamad said he didn’t know the defendants.
“Agents were trying to chase some people,” Hamad said Arena told him, referring to the raid. “They were giving instructions to lay down. He resisted. He pulled a gun. They exchanged fire, he was shot down, killed. A dog … was dead as well.”
The warehouse is near the heavily commercial intersection of Miller and Michigan.
Dawud Walid, head of the Michigan Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Arena called him as well.
Walid said he knew Abdullah.
“I know him as a respected imam in the Muslim community,” Walid said.

The allegation that he’s a “respected imam” intrigued me. I mean, how does a career criminal who preaches the killing of non-Muslims and plots against the FBI become respectable?
In an accompanying article titled “
Muslim leaders caution against hasty judgment” another Muslim leader warns about “trying to imply that faith has anything to do with it”:

Victor Ghalib Begg, chairman of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan, said the Muslim community condemns any type of violence.
“Obviously, these people are Muslims, but we don’t know the circumstances, so I really want to reserve any comment,” he said. “Incidents like these, people need to be careful smearing religions and trying to imply that faith has to do with it.”

But I’m not trying to imply anything!
The respected Imam himself has stated plainly that his faith had everything to do with it.
And by the way, it is no understatement to call him “respected.” He is listed as being on the governing body (the “Majlis ash-Shura”), of an organization called the Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA). MANA is considered a mainstream Muslim organization, and its founder is Ihsan Bagby, who is on the Board of Directors of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), as well as a Board Member of CAIR.
Which means the CAIR spokesman did not exaggerate when he called the murderous Abdullah a “respected Imam.”
I think this indicates that the American Muslim community has a problem over who is considered respectable.
But don’t take my word for it. Just read what the respected Imam said:

“We got to take out the U.S. government. The U.S. government is nothing but Kuffars.”
(The indictment says that “Kafir is a highly derogatory term used to describe a non-Muslim, and that ‘Kuffar’ is the plural form of the word.”

“The worst Muslim is better than the best Kafir.”

“America must fall.”

Or read what the respected Imam’s followers are saying at a site where he is called a “martyr”:

O Imam Luqman, what a hero you are! You were a star and your last breath was like a supernova.
You did not fear or falter, by the Lord of the Kaba, you have been triumphant!
[…]
So is killed one more great leader of our Ummah,
but one hundred will take his place.
Yes, our brother’s blood was spilt, but it was not is vain.
Verily the seedlings of Tawheed are watered with the blood of the martyrs and fertilized with their flesh.
Yes, our brothers’s blood was split, and it ran red.
And may it be red also on the Day of Judgment, but only let is smell of Musk.
Yes, our brother’s brother’s blood was spilled, and it was like rain water on the parched earth.
Truly it is an expensive price to pay to enter Jannah.
And let it be, O Imam Luqman, that when you meet Allah, and He asks what what you want,
may it be you say, Ya Allah, put my soul in my body again, so I can be killed once more for Your safe.
And may he find happiness in the company of The Propet [S.A.W.], and the Martyrs, and the Pius,
and may you rejoice with in Hoor Al Ayn in a garden where the fruit is sweet and the flowers never wilt.

Again, who is “trying to imply that faith has to do with it”?
Here’s a video compilation from local news:

And here’s the Fox News writeup.
I wish I could figure out how to stop violent anti-American terrorists from being considered respectable.
But that was my complaint about Bill Ayers — repeated to the point I was tired of repeating myself.