Jihadis mobilizing in small American towns

The Dept. of Justice reports that there are "more than 35 suspected communes and more than 30,000 members spread across the US, all in support of one goal: the purification of Islam through violence."

WASHINGTON: In the 1980s when small towns in FATA were turning into recruitment centers for the Afghan war, seeds of jihad took hold and bloomed in some unexpected places – in two small towns in the United States, where two groups formed by Sheikh Mubarik Gilani –arrested in connection with Daniel Pearl's murder in 2002 – are suspected of violent extremism.

The towns of Red House, Virginia and Islamberg, New York are home to a small number of African-American converts to Islam who have withdrawn from the outside world to live by a set of strict religious codes. The two communities, which have formed a sect calling themselves the Muslims of the Americas, are said to be the followers of Sheikh Gilani. Gilani began preaching at a mosque in Brooklyn, New York seeking recruits for the Afghan jihad in 1980. It was then that he formed the group Jamat al Fuqra and later the Muslims of the Americas.

The Muslims of the Americas, a group exempt from tax, operates communes of primarily black, American-born Muslims in many states in the US. In addition to the compounds in Virginia and New York, these groups, which some have characterized as a cult, has compounds in Badger, California; Red House, Virginia; Binghamton, New York; and York, South Carolina. The cult houses between 100 and 200 people, many of them women and children in about 20 huge trailers.

A 2005 Department of Homeland Security report, titled the "Integrated Planning Guidance Report", warned that "other predicted possible sponsors of attacks (against North America) include Jamat al Fuqra (JF) that has been linked to Muslims of the Americas".Federal government officials told Daily Times that in 2006, the Department of Justice reported that the JF "has more than 35 suspected communes and more than 30,000 members spread across the US, all in support of one goal: the purification of Islam through violence."...

They are tax exempt? Why? And if we know that these places exist, why are we not going in and monitoring them?