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Recently there have been numerous news reports of connections between al-Queda and our nation’s gangs.

On 1/5/05 the Boston Herald reported that intelligence officials in Washington DC have warned law enforcement agencies that al-Qaeda terrorists have been spotted with members of the MS-13 gang in El Salvador and that many law enforcement officials view MS-13 as the most violent and growing gang in our nation. Altho ugh according to gang investigators across the nation the membership levels of MS-13 are relatively low when compared to other gangs, the involvement of our nation’s gangs in terrorist acts is an area of concern.

In August 2005 several inmates within the California prison system housed at Folsom prison created an extremist Islam group known as Jamiyyat Ul Islam Is Saheeh, also known as JIS. The group consisted of several former members of the Bay Area prison gang, the 415s. This extremist group was in the final stages of planning and were preparing to engage in several terrorist acts including the attack of National Guard recruitment centers, synagogues and other sites in Southern California. The group even began recruiting members without any criminal history. Federal authorities recently zoomed in on the gang after members were involved in a string of armed robberies to fund their future terrorist acts and the attempted purchase of additional firearms.

Most people are familiar with the case of former Chicago gang member Jose Padillia who converted to Islam while incarcerated. With his distain towards authority and growing extremist views, he became sympathetic to al-Queda and was detained after he was training to explode a toxic “dirty bomb” in our country.

Many believe that this is a new trend, but our gangs forming relationships with terrorist dates back much earlier. There was the 1986 case involving Chicago gang leader Jeff Fort. During the 1970s, Fort was one of the most influential gang leaders and drug dealers in Chicago, where he unified many of the Chicago gangs into one large criminal organization.

After a prison conviction, he converted to Islam and renamed his gang the El Rukns-a name borrowed from the cornerstone of the Kaaba, an Islamic shrine in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The group even purchased a theater and several apartment buildings in Chicago.

Even after a 1983 Mississippi drug conviction resulting in a 13-year prison sentence, Fort was able to maintain control of the group. On March 11, 1986 four of Fort's top lieutenants, Reico Cranshaw, Leon McAnderson, Charles Knox and Yvonne King, flew from Chicago to Casablanca then on to Tripoli, Libya on tickets paid for by the Libyan government. The four promoted El Rukns' as a group that could carry out acts of terrorism to combat American imperialism, and brokered a deal with Kaddafi, where the latter agreed to pay El Rukns 2.5 million dollars in exchange for their services. To seal the deal, Kaddafi called the Chicago headquarters and his call was transferred to Fort while he was incarcerated in federal prison. El Rukns' members arranged the purchase of an anti-tank missile from undercover FBI agents, and after it was moved to the El Rukns' armory located in one of their apartment buildings, the FBI moved in and made arrests.

The question remains. Is al-Queda actively recruiting on our nation’s streets and prisons?

In 2004 a British band known as Sheikh Terra and the Soul Salah Crew made a rap video entitled “Dirty Kuffar.” Kuffar is an Arabic term meaning non-believer. The video has such imagery as a sniper’s crosshairs on a U. S. soldier and such terms as “Kill the Crusaders.” It also includes Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden’s right-hand man, morphing into a lion and President George Bush morphing into a monkey. The rap video was used as a propaganda tool to encourage youth to join the jihad, or the fight against our country. The video has a catchy beat and raps over the images of dead American troops and collapsing buildings with such lyrics as;

Dirty Kuffar wherever you are;
From Kandahar to Ramallah;
OBL [Osama bin Laden] Crew be like a shining star;
like the way we destroy them two tower, ha ha.

Although there might not be enough evidence to show that the al-Queda leadership is activity making an effort to recruit our nation’s gangs to jihad, there appears to be a growing number of incidents in which criminals with anti-authority views, who share a similar distain to the American way of life are increasingly becoming involving in extremist organizations with the goal of destroying our way of life.