{"id":393777,"date":"2019-01-22T21:58:01","date_gmt":"2019-01-22T20:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/4-men-arrested-in-new-york-state-while-preparing-to-bomb-muslim-settlement-rt-usa-news\/"},"modified":"2019-01-22T21:58:01","modified_gmt":"2019-01-22T20:58:01","slug":"4-men-arrested-in-new-york-state-while-preparing-to-bomb-muslim-settlement-rt-usa-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/4-men-arrested-in-new-york-state-while-preparing-to-bomb-muslim-settlement-rt-usa-news\/","title":{"rendered":"4 men arrested in New York state while \u2018preparing to bomb\u2019 Muslim settlement \u2014 RT USA News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four men, three of them teenagers, were arrested and charged with plotting to attack the reclusive Muslim community of Islamberg in upstate New York. They had prepared multiple explosive devices and over 20 guns for the plot.<\/p>\n

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Police in the Rochester suburb of Greece arrested three men, aged 20, 19, and 18, and a 16-year-old boy on Friday, and found improvised explosive devices at the 16-year-old\u2019s home. The devices were described as cylinders and mason jars wrapped in duct tape.<\/p>\n

All four have been charged with three counts of possession of dangerous weapons and one count of conspiracy, all felonies. The youngest suspect has been charged as an adolescent offender. Between them, the four had access to 23 guns, Police Chief Patrick Phelan told<\/a> reporters.<\/p>\n

Phelan said that the investigation originally began after a child in a Greece high school overheard a classmate refer to one of the teenagers involved as \u201cthe next school shooter,\u201d<\/em> and told staff.<\/p>\n

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Their target was allegedly Islamberg, a rural hamlet in the Catskill mountains. Settled by a Pakistani cleric in the 1980s, Islamberg is home to several hundred Muslims and is the headquarters of Muslims of America, an organization that runs similar settlements across the country.<\/p>\n

The Catskill mountains are freezing cold in winter, and may seem an unlikely place for a Pakistani cleric to settle on, but Sheikh Mubarik Gilani made the move there over three decades ago, fleeing crime and overcrowding in New York City. His mostly African-American followers who came with him said they wanted a better place to raise their children.<\/p>\n

The community is an insular one, and the Muslims of Islamberg have been cautious about granting access to the press. AP reporters<\/a> that were given limited access in 2017 saw buildings that blend Islamic tradition with the barns and clinker board more common to the region. The settlers tend animals, work in the locality and homeschool their children, free from Western influence.<\/p>\n

Rumors of terrorism and fundamentalism have dogged Islamberg since Gilani first bought land there, and the weekend\u2019s arrests were the latest in a series of threats and accusations.<\/p>\n

A Tennessee man was sentenced<\/a> to nearly 20 years in prison for attempting to gather a militia to burn down Islamberg\u2019s mosque and hit the town with an \u201carmed attack\u201d<\/em> in 2015. Every year since 2015, a group of anti-Muslim bikers calling themselves \u2018American Bikers United Against Jihad\u2019 rumble through the town in an event they call the \u2018Ride for National Security.\u2019<\/p>\n