Montgomery County Imam Financed Terror Plot, Praised ISIS: FBI

CLARKSBURG, MD — A Montgomery County imam allegedly helped finance a plot by a Detroit terror suspect to amass explosives and weapons in support of the Islamic State, claims the FBI, an allegation that the faith leader laughs off as “ridiculous.”

Sebastian Gregerson of Michigan was plotting violent jihad in a conspiracy outlined in more than 200 pages of sealed federal court records obtained by The Detroit News after Gregerson was arrested when he reportedly bought fragmentation grenades from an undercover FBI agent.

Imam Suleiman Bengharsa, 59, of Clarksburg, is named in the FBI documents as the person who helped Gregerson buy two AK-47s, handguns, seven rifles, a shotgun and thousands of rounds of ammunition, according to the court records. Bengharsa, who also is known as Sheikh Suleiman Anwar, has not been charged with a crime.

“No, no, no, that is absolutely untrue,” Bengharsa told The Detroit News in a recent interview. “It might appear that way. I am an advocate of the United States and the West getting the hell out of the Middle East and the Muslim world."

Bengharsa was once a trade analyst for the U.S. Commerce Department who has publicly spoken out in support of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, The Washington Post reports, quoting unsealed FBI search warrant documents.

According to the FBI, Bengharsa celebrated ISIS killings, denounced feminism through a sharia law center he started in Montgomery County, and criticized Muslims who cooperated with terrorism investigations.

Gregerson lived in Maryland for several years and reportedly met Bengharsa at Masjid Umar in Woodlawn. While friends and an ex-wife remember him as someone who was not deeply religious, Bengharsa founded the Islamic Jurisprudence Center in June 2015 to fight “the anti-Islamic agendas of the kuffar [unbelievers] and munafiqeen [hypocrites] in the West,” the Post says.