Private Investigator Bill Warner has exposed a meeting of the terror group al-Muhajiroun at the Masjid al-Fatima in Queens NY. I had accompied a BBC News crew led by investigative reporter Richard Watson to the Islamic Center of Queens aka Masjid al-Fatima (see video here) is search of links to al-Qaeda terrorist Moahmmed Junaid Barber. While we were waiting to interview the Mosques founder Brother Aqeel Khan and group of Muslim men arrived in an old GMC "Jimmy" SUV. The Islamic radicals had come from Baltimore Maryland to the Islamic Center of Queens aka Masjid al-Fatima to request money for a project they were undertaking. The Mosques founder and leader, Brother Aqeel Khan (man in white shirt) met with the Islamic radicals for a short period of time in the basement of the Mosque and then they departed in the red GMC "Jimmy" SUV which was parked next to the Mosque. The license plate number of the SUV was givin to Detective Williams of the NYPD Counter Terrorism Bureau in Brooklyn along with photos of the members of the al-Muhajiroun group from Baltimore. CLICK ON IMAGES ABOVE FOR VIDEO.
In a subsequent interview on the sidewalk in front of the Masjid al-Fatima, Brother Aqeel Khan told the BBC News Richard Watson and myself that these guys from Baltimore were up to no good, he did not want anything to do with al-Muhajiroun.
BBC journalist Richard Watson stated in a recent report (video) that at the end of the 1990s, Omar Bakri Mohammed wanted to expand into the US. The information on what had happened in New Yorks HT chapter was made more clear by private investigator Bill Warner. In 2005 he had taken BBC reporter Richard Watson to the Masjid al-Fatima on 37th Avenue, Woodside in Queens. Here, the BBC filmed Aqeel Khan, the founder and secretary of the Queens Islamic Center at the mosque, while Bill Warner interviewed him. During the mid 1990s, the mosque had been infiltrated by radical members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, much as they had tried to take over the Croydon mosque in London.
London bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan was featured in a surveillance operation by UK intelligence services, a BBC investigation suggests.
The Radio 4 File on 4 and BBC Two Newsnight investigation film also suggests he was in contact with al-Qaeda activists for the last five years in the USA more specifically Queens NY Mosques. Bill Warner's investigations also showed that a meeting took place at the Masjid al-Fatima mosque with lectures given by Sajil Shahid, see info on him in the video here
In 1999, according to Richard Watson on BBC's Newsnight - Omar Bakri Mohammed wanted to expand Al Muhajiroun's operations. He sent an envoy to New York, called Sajil Shahid. It was in New York that Shahid, a Dutch/Pakistani, met Mohammed Junaid Babar, whose testimony would later help to convict the Operation Crevice members.
In New York in the mid-1990s, the Queens Islamic Center, based at the Masjid al-Fatima on 37th Avenue, Woodside, had been taken over by radicals from Hizb ut-Tahrir. The US Hizb ut-Tahrir branch had been set up in Queens in the 1980s by Iyad Hilal. He recently lived in Orange County, California, before being forced into hiding.
Aqeel Khan, founder and secretary of the Queens Islamic Center, said of these Hizb radicals: "They had their own programs, which were not the directions of the mosque... There were five times (a day) prayer, but then they had their own meetings here and we - the general public - were not invited." The radicals were officially thrown out after $400,000 had gone missing from mosque funds, but they continued to use the mosque. It is believed to be here that Junaid Babar met Sajil Shahid.
From June 2 to 4, 2000, there was a meeting at the Masjid al-Fatima mosque, with lectures given by Sajil Shahid and also American Al-Muhajiroun member Syed "Fahad" Hashmi, who was arrested at London's Heathrow airport on June 6 last year on suspicion of providing cash and military equipment for al-Qaeda terrorists. Richard Watson reports BBC "Newsnight" re-released the film May of 07, it had been suppressed during Mohamed Junaid Babar's testimony against other al-Muhajiroun members at trial in London.
In a UK publication it states that Investigations by private detective Bill Warner have been crucial in piecing together the links between the British membership of Al Muhajiroun with their counterparts in Queens New York, and their combined links with terrorism.
Bill Warner
Private investigator
www.wbipi.com
