Feds Go After $250K Owed by Dearborn Cleric with ISIS Influence

A study by British researchers this spring said Ahmad Musa Jibril is one of two U.S. Muslim religious leaders greatly influencing ISIS and other radical Islamic groups. (Photo: Shaykh Ahmad Musa Jibril Facebook page)

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The federal government got a green light to use the “actions necessary” to collect a quarter of a million dollars in restitution owed by a Dearborn cleric who is popular with the Islamic militants who beheaded U.S. journalist James Foley and was banned from local mosques because of his fiery rhetoric.

Ahmad Musa Jibril, 43, (aka Ahmad Jebril) owes $250,000 in restitution and costs related to fraud convictions that landed him in prison for 6½ years, the Detroit Free Press reports. He and his co-defendant father were convicted on 42 counts bank and mail fraud, failure to pay income tax and money laundering.

Losses from their scheme, which involved deliberately vandalizing their rental properties so they could collect insurance money, amounted to $400,000.

Since his release from the federal prison at Terre Haute, IN, in March 2012, Jibril has made only a small $2,790 dent in the obligation, the government said at a hearing earlier this month.

“Fanatically Anti-American”

The government was concerned about Jibril’s extremist views at the time he went to trial. He was sentenced to the high security Terre Haute federal prison, known as “Guantanamo North” because of its high percentage of inmates convicted on terror charges and housed units with 24-hour surveillance.

The government filed a memorandum at the time of sentencing showing photos of the defendant as a teenager dressed as a mujahid (a guerrilla fighter in an Islamic country) and photos of very young children “playing” at holding one another hostage and pointing apparently real firearms at each other’s heads.

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Details about Jibril’s criminal past and growing influence as a cheerleader for ISIS were among those included in a report released in April by researchers at the Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King’s College in London. The researchers – three security experts affiliated – concluded after their year-long study that “social media represents an essential source of information and inspiration” to militants, and the conflict in Syria may be the first in history in “in which a large number of western fighters have been documenting their involvement in conflict in real-time.”

The researchers’ findings about Jibril’s growing international following among radical Muslims were troubling enough to prompt the government to ask U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen in June to restrict Jibril’s travel to eastern Michigan. He also must turn over his computer if asked to do so by his probation officer, according to Rosen’s ruling.

Dismissed from Dearborn Mosque

The pioneering study from the King’s College researchers offers telling anecdotes about Jibril’s prominence in radical Islam politics and suspicion aimed at him from the United States.

The researchers cited federal prosecutors’ special memorandum filed at the time of Jibril’s sentencing, including details about a radical web site Jibril operated at the time that “contained a library of fanatically anti-American sermons by militant Islamic clerics.”

Lectures “turned into angry rants about Western crimes against Muslims and he peppered his talk with invectives against Shi’a Muslims and called on God to turn Jewish children into orphans.”

The government also said Jibril sent a fax to CNN in 1996 claiming responsibility for the Kohbar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, warning of “a series of bombings that will follow no matter how many lives of ours are taken.”

Around the time of his arrest, he was being shunned by Muslims in Dearborn, where about 40 percent of the population is Arab-American. His radical views prompted his dismissal from a Dearborn mosque in 2003. He transferred to mosque in Brownstone, but within a month was also banned from prayers there as well.

Some of his contemporaries described him as “a very powerful speaker,” but Jawad Kahn, who knew him at the time, said his lectures “turned into angry rants about Western crimes against Muslims and he peppered his talk with invectives against Shi’a Muslims and called on God to turn Jewish children into orphans,” the researchers said.

Cheerleader for Jihad

Within 13 days of his March 2012 release from Terre Haute federal prison, Jibril began Tweeting support for Syrian rebels, The Guardian said.

During the next two years, he developed a strong social media following, his popularity “particularly strong among groups like ISIS,” according to the researchers. More than half of the militants they surveyed who either liked his Facebook page or followed him on Twitter were also affiliated with ISIS.

Jibril’s Facebook page has more than 219,500 likes, and he has 26,700 Twitter followers.

“It is clear that (Jibril and Australian preacher Musa Cerantonio) are important figures whose political, moral and spiritual messages are considered attractive to a number of foreign fighters.”

The researchers said said Jibril didn’t physically participate or recruit foreign fighters to Syria or openly entice violence. Rather, as a charismatic cheerleader for jihadist organizations, he peppers his lectures with highly charged religious and sectarian idioms.

“A number of British ISIS fighters have told us that they watched his (Jibril’s) lecture series … before embarking on jihad,” they said, concluding:

“It is clear that (Jibril and Australian preacher Musa Cerantonio, also esteemed by militant Muslims) are important figures whose political, moral and spiritual messages are considered attractive to a number of foreign fighters.”

The ISIS fighter who claimed responsibility for decapitating Foley sounded as if he had a British accent, prompting more controversy about fighters from England, the U.S., Australia, France and Germany fighting for ISIS and other radical groups. The attack on Foley prompted a harsh rebuke from President Barack Obama, who said airstrikes launched earlier this month against ISIS for its advances in Iraq will continue.

The Free Press attempted to contact Jibril and his attorney, but did not receive return calls or emails.

Jibril’s social media accounts have been quiet since early July, and some of his supporters claim he’s being silenced and persecuted by the government. Though he is under court-order to surrender his computer at the request of court officials, the government hasn’t restricted his right to speak or post online.