Angry in the Great White North

From the Sacramento Bee:

Supporters of the center envision a small elementary school that embraces traditional Islamic values, a gathering place for Muslim women who are otherwise sequestered at home, a playground, a library and a site for worship.

"There's a huge need for it," said Pamela Parvez, a Lodi mother of seven who makes an 80-mile round-trip drive each weekday to ferry her fourth-grader to an Islamic school in Sacramento.

But what "need" is actually being met?

But federal attorneys and agents, mounting a counterterrorism offensive in Lodi, saw a darker future for the Farooqia Islamic Center. They have alleged in court that the facility's secret mission may have been to recruit and groom American Muslims for the jihad - the holy war against enemies of Islam.

In testimony at an immigration court hearing Aug. 9, FBI agent Gary Schaaf compared the Lodi school to militant madrassahs - Muslim seminaries - in Pakistan: "Our investigation has come across information that the (planned Lodi) madrassah is part of a long-term plan ... during which students would be spotted and assessed and maybe eventually be ready to commit acts of violence in the U.S."

Quite the allegation. What is the basis?

The FBI will not elaborate on its allegations, saying the investigation continues.

There are disturbing ties to extremists that are part of the public record:

Meanwhile, a faction within the Lodi Muslim Mosque is suing the center's board of directors for $200,000. And the project's founder and fundraising spearhead, former Lodi imam Muhammed Adil Khan, was deported to Pakistan this month as part of the terrorism probe.

The idea for the Farooqia Islamic Center took root when Adil Khan, a religious scholar from Pakistan, joined the Lodi Muslim Mosque in 2001.

From an earlier Sacramento Bee story:

Muhammed Adil Khan generated excitement and controversy in Muslim circles when he joined the troubled Lodi Muslim Mosque in 2001.

The soft-spoken Pakistani immigrant promised to build a progressive Islamic school open to everyone, girls as well as boys, non-Muslims as well as Muslims.

Earlier this month Adil Khan and his protege from Pakistan, Shabbir Ahmed - who also served as imam of the Lodi mosque - were jailed without bond on allegations of U.S. immigration violations, along with Adil Khan's 19-year-old son, Mohammad Hassan Adil.

Paul Nishiie, a prosecutor for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said that in a recent FBI interview, Shabbir Ahmed admitted giving five speeches in Islamabad shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, "encouraging people to go to Afghanistan to defend Osama, to defend the Taliban and to kill Americans."

Now this is creepy -- a "graduate" of Adil Kahn's school in Pakistan:

Ahmed was a student of Adil Khan's at the Jamia Farooqia school [in Karachi, Pakistan] before becoming a teacher himself. He acknowledged during testimony that the school sent guerrillas to Afghanistan to wage jihad (a divinely inspired defense against enemies of Islam) against the Soviets, who occupied the country until 1989 after their 1979 invasion.

Hopefull the FBI will be able to explain in detail the specific evidence they have. One wonders how many more schools in Canada and the US need more scrutiny.

[Muslim terrorists might be targeting this school in California to use as a recruiting centre. Michelle Malkin reminds us of another school targeted by Muslim terrorists -- Beslan.]