Washington: A Detroit mosque leader accused of heading a militant group died Wednesday in a shootout with federal agents conducting raids that led to the arrests of eight suspects.
Three additional suspects are wanted on charges including conspiracy, weapons violations and trafficking in stolen goods. There were no terrorism charges, though court documents alleged that the leader had threatened terrorist actions in conversations with FBI informants and undercover agents.
Luqman Ameen Abdullah, 53, who was also known as Christopher Thomas, died after allegedly firing on FBI agents executing a search warrant on a warehouse in Dearborn, Michigan, outside Detroit. Abdullah led the Masjid Al Haqq, a mosque in Detroit of predominantly African-American converts to Islam.
“The 11 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,” the FBI and federal prosecutors said in a statement. An FBI dog died of a gunshot in the shootout.
Abdullah and 10 other people were charged with conspiring to commit federal crimes, including theft from interstate shipments, mail fraud, illegal possession and sale of firearms, and tampering with motor vehicle identification numbers.
Federal agents carried out a series of arrests on Wednesday, ordering suspects to surrender. "At one location, four suspects surrendered and were arrested without incident. Luqman Ameen Abdullah did not surrender and fired his weapon. An exchange of gun fire followed and Abdullah was killed,” the FBI statement said.
Abdullah had espoused the use of violence against law enforcement, and had trained members of his group in use of firearms and martial arts in anticipation of some type of action against the government, according to an affidavit unsealed on Wednesday.
His group seeks to establish a separate Sharia law-governed state within the United States, the FBI said.
The group consists primarily of people who converted to Islam while serving sentences in various US prisons, Detroit television station WDIV reported on its website. The FBI said the group was led by Jamil Abdullah Al Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, a major figure in the militant Black Panther party in the 1960s. Brown is serving a prison sentence for the murder of two police officers in Georgia.
