Blacks Recruited For Terror By Al-Qaida

Al-Qaida is aggressively recruiting black Americans for suicide operations against the homeland, say FBI analysts who have reviewed recent videotaped messages from the terror group’s leaders.

A speech released May 5 by Osama bin Laden’s deputy confirms earlier fears that African-Americans are the No. 1 recruiting target for the next generation of attacks. Al-Qaida has been trying to lower its Arab profile to reduce the odds that its terror cells will be subjected to security scrutiny.

“Federal and local law enforcement authorities should be aware that al-Qaida terrorists may not appear Arab,” warns a recent Homeland Security intelligence report obtained by WND. “Non-Arab al-Qaida operatives could find it easier to avoid unwanted scrutiny since they may not fit typical profiles.”

In the latest message, al-Qaida No. 2 Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri clearly seeks to sow political and racial discontent among African-Americans. He makes frequent references to what he calls the “martyr” Malcolm X, and says “I want blacks in America to know that we are waging jihad to lift oppression from all mankind.”

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According to a transcript of the hour-long screed, Zawahiri said this is “the culture which the struggler and martyr Malcom X (may Allah have mercy upon him) fought against when he told his repressed black brothers in America, ‘If you’re not ready to die for it, take the word “freedom” out of your vocabulary.’”

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Zawahiri, again citing the teachings of Malcolm X, suggests that black Muslims who do not rise up against America are no better than “house slaves.”

It’s the first time al-Qaida has identified Malcolm X as a fellow Islamic “struggler and martyr,” analysts say.

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Last year, in another nearly hour-long videotaped speech, al-Qaida propaganda chief Gadahn invited blacks to convert to Islam and take revenge against a nation that enslaved their ancestors.

Gadahn, a white convert from California thought to be operating out of al-Qaida’s new base in Pakistan, slammed his native America, which he said “shamelessly brought us lynch laws, Jim Crow, and a death row where only convicts of certain races are sent.”

In courting African-Americans, he also encouraged them to forsake Christianity, which he claims whites have used as an excuse to abuse blacks.

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Blacks account for the largest share of Muslims in America. A great many of them are converts to Islam. And remarkably, the religion is flourishing among African-Americans since 9/11. Analysts fear the trend plays right into bin Laden’s hands.

Black converts say Islam has more in common with their African heritage than Christianity. In fact, black Muslim leaders often refer to such conversions as “reversions,” claiming black “reverts” are merely returning to the Islamic faith prominent among their African forebears who were forced into slavery.

“You have African-American men seeking liberation,” explained black Muslim leader Eric Erfan Vickers, “and many see Christianity as a white man’s religion that continues to oppress.”

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Christian prison chaplains say Islam is so popular with inmates they are having a hard time competing with Muslim chaplains for their souls. Blacks are being converted by the cell block. The FBI worries blacks could be the next face of terror in America.

Since 9/11, the agency has already disrupted several homegrown terror plots involving black Muslim converts, including:

* A group of black Muslim converts in Miami who allegedly conspired to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago (some had rap sheets).

* A Chicago black Muslim, Derrick Shareef, who allegedly plotted to blow up a local shopping mall.

* A black U.S. soldier, Hassan Abujihaad, who allegedly fed terrorists classified information about U.S. battleship movements in the Strait of Hormuz.

* Black ex-con Muslims in Torrance, Calif., who allegedly planned to attack military recruiting stations and synagogues in the state. The plot was initially hatched in prison.

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