Private Undercover Team Exposes Nationwide Network Of Radical, Anti-U.S. Islamic Centers

Hundreds of Islamic centers in the United States have become a hot-bed of extremist activity; they promote violence, terrorism and hatred against America.

“Our initial investigation has concluded there are between 400 to 500 radical Islamic centers in the U.S.,” said David Gaubatz, the director of counterintelligence and counterterrorism for the Society of Americans for National Existence. “In those places, they preach an extreme version of Islam that says America and the West is the enemy. They espouse violence, hatred and the need for terrorism.”

Gaubatz is a former senior U.S. intelligence official, who now works for the Mapping Shari’a in America Project (www.mappingsharia.com), which is supported by SANE, a national non-profit group devoted to investigating the 2,300 Islamic centers in the U.S. for extremist activity.

Gaubatz and his investigators are currently active and will soon form a team of about 12. They pose as people interested in converting to Islam or who are current Muslims. Their goal is to infiltrate mosques and Muslim centers. Recently, he and his team penetrated the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center, located in Falls Church, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C.

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Gaubatz said that he met the two primary clerics at Dar Al-Hijrah, Imam Shaker Elsayed and Imam Johari Abdulmalik. Both men have been trained in Saudi Arabia. He says another key individual is Yusef Estes, an informal senior leader at the center and an internationally influential Muslim scholar who was trained in Saudi Arabia.

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He said that the Islamic center has deep ties to Saudi Arabia and espouses Wahhabism, a virulent and puritanical version of Islam.

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Gaubatz says that Dar Al-Hijrah and other radical Islamic centers in the U.S. are funded by Saudi Arabia, which is the primary sponsor of the Wahhabist brand of Islam.

“The ultimate goal for those at Dar Al-Hijrah is to instill Sharia law in the U.S. and have America adhere to the Islamic faith,” he said. “They want America to be an Islamic state.”

Gaubatz said that the imams at the center encouraged him to read the works of their “friends”—some of whom have been convicted for terrorism-related activities. According to Gaubatz, one of those “friends” he was encouraged to read is Ali Al-Tamimi, a radical Islamist author, who was convicted of inciting terrorism in connection with the Virginia Jihad Network.

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The Virginia Jihad Network was a group of radical Islamists who were charged with engaging in terrorist plots. Nine members of the group were convicted of using and possessing various weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and explosives.

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Gaubatz maintains that he and his team of field workers at the Mapping Shari’a in America Project are not only focusing on major metropolitan areas. Although there is plenty of Islamist activity in cities such as Detroit, Dearborn, Michigan and Washington, he says radical Muslims are also establishing education and religious centers in small towns.

“They’re branching out and teaching the Jihadist ideology in small towns across America, especially in rural areas in places like Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina,” Gaubatz said.

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