http://www.freep.com/article/20091028/NEWS02/91028073/1318/FBI-kill...

The leader of what federal authorities describe as a fundamentalist group was shot and killed today during a series of raids in Dearborn and Detroit that resulted in federal charges against 11 men.

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Luqman Ameen Abdullah, 53, also known as Christopher Thomas, was gunned down after refusing to surrender and opening fire when the FBI raided a Dearborn warehouse, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

“The eleven defendants are members of a group that is alleged to have engaged in violent activity over a period of many years and known to be armed,” according to a joint statement from the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office.

An FBI dog was also killed during one of the raids.

Abdullah and 10 others were charged in a complaint with conspiracy to commit several federal felony crimes, including illegal possession and sale of firearms and theft from interstate shipments.

Abdullah was the leader of a group which 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 press release states.

“The Ummah is ruled by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rapp Brown, who is serving a state sentence… for the murder of two police officers in Georgia.”

The case was worked by the FBI, Detroit Police, U.S. Attorney’s Office and Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The raids took place at at least two locations today – a trucking business in Dearborn and a home in Detroit.

Three of the suspects are expected to appear in U.S. District Court in Detroit today.

Detroit Police spokesman John Roach and Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad declined to comment. Both said the matter was being handled by FBI.

Group aimed to create an Islamic state

The men arrested in the raid were part of a Detroit mosque where a leader called for “an offensive jihad,” according to the criminal complaint.

Eleven Muslim men were charged in the complaint. One of them is in custody, two are at loose, and seven appeared today in U.S. District Court, said the U.S. Attorney’s office. Six of those men appeared on complaints they received or sold good stolen across interstate lines.

Luqman Abdullah “regularly preaches anti-government and anti-law enforcement rhetoric,” the complaint said.

The mosque that was the center of the investigation has ties to a Muslim advocacy group, according to the complaint.

According to the complaint, “The mosque is also affiliated with CAIR,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The head of the Michigan branch of the Council on American Relations could not be immediately reached for comment.


The complaint says that Abdullah is “a highly placed leader of a nationwide radical fundamentalist Sunni group consisting primarily of African-Americans, some of whom converted to Islam while they were serving sentences in various prisons across the United States. Their primary mission is to establish a separate, sovereign Islamic state (“The Ummah”) within the borders of the United States, governed by Shariah law.”

'It was like a movie scene for a minute'

Shadi Saad, the owner of Wellcare Pharmacy on Oakman in Dearborn, said he stepped outside before lunchtime to see several people in FBI jackets with guns going toward the warehouse across the street. He heard noises like shots and a short time later a helicopter descended.

“It was like a movie scene for a minute,” he said. He opened his business, he said, just 10 days ago. “This isn’t the way I wanted it to start.”