Jihad Joe_ Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam - J. M. Berger [38]
I think it was a disgrace in the sight of humanity that these people was under the heading of ethnic cleansing, setting up rape camps, raping women and killing, killing children, and I looked at it in the same form of genocide that was going on with the Germans that killed the Jews, that people would kill the Africans that came here, before they came here and any other form of genocide, what happened in Afghanistan and everything else. So I thought it was my duty to try to do something as an individual.42
In August Rashid was offered an opportunity to act by Tahir. At first, Tahir tried to recruit Rashid into the program as a trainer himself. Rashid’s spirit was willing, but his injured leg was weak. Instead, they agreed, he could serve the cause by training others before they left U.S. soil.
When Tahir left the United States in late 1992, he asked Rashid to take over. In December he called Rashid and sent him to Washington, D.C., to meet Bilal Philips and receive further instructions.
When Rashid arrived in Washington, he was met by a U.S. Marine sergeant roughly matching Qaseem Uqdah’s description. Rashid would not reveal the man’s real name, but Philips confirmed that Uqdah was part of the project in a role similar to that described by Rashid. Uqdah refused to be interviewed for this book but did not deny his involvement in the program when given the opportunity (see details at the end of this chapter).43
As Rashid told the story, the two men drove to the embassy of Saudi Arabia, where they were searched twice before being escorted inside to meet with Philips and a Saudi prince. Philips did not recall this event and felt that it was unlikely to have happened, given the nature of the program, which he said had no official sanction.44
According to Rashid, he chatted with the prince for a while, then Philips entered the room and explained the project. After the meeting, Rashid visited the marine’s home. The soldier gave him army training manuals on combat, sniper techniques, and machine gunnery. The next day the marine showed Rashid around Fort Belvoir.
As Rashid described it, the marine’s role in the project was to obtain the names of U.S. soldiers who would be leaving the military soon and could be approached to go on the next mission to Bosnia, corresponding to the role Philips described for former marine Uqdah.45
Rashid returned to New York with an agenda and a promise of financing to come. He also had help from another former marine named Abu Ubaidah Yahya, whom Tahir had recommended.
But there were obstacles ahead.
Despite significant bureaucratic hurdles, the Joint Terrorism Task Force was by now actively circling the group of radicals who had gathered around Omar Abdel Rahman. And Rashid was at the center of the storm.
“The name of Abdul Rashid had come up to us, ‘Doctor’ Rashid,” recalled Tom Corrigan, an NYPD detective on the JTTF. “We went out to our sources, the people knew him, but we couldn’t get an address on him or a location or a phone number on him. He was kind of famous in the community because any time you mentioned that name, the first thing that came up was he’s a guy who fought overseas. He went overseas, he had been wounded overseas.”
On his return to New York, Rashid reached out to Garrett Wilson, an imposingly large veteran who worked as a Defense Department police officer by day and a security consultant and trainer by night. Unfortunately for Rashid, Wilson was also a government informant.
Wilson had become concerned about the paramilitary nature of the requests he was receiving from Black Muslim clients in New York and elsewhere. He started running his business contacts past the Naval Intelligence Service, which eventually loaned him out to the JTTF in New York.
The JTTF team had been trying to penetrate the intrigues whirling around the Al Kifah Center. Wilson arranged a meeting with Rashid in late December 1992—a watershed