Connections relating back to a Brooklyn office have spurred questions about terrorist relations in the United States. The Alkifah Refugee Center on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn was thought to be the meeting place for many terrorist involved in recent bombing incidents, including the World Trade Center and two U.S. embassies. Osama bin Laden is suspected to have connections with many members of his widespread terrorist group through the Alkifah Refugee Center.
Neighborhood Hub
Alkifah Center, in those years, was a neighborhood hub. It started out as a desk in Al Farooq Mosque around 1986 and then moved into a small apartment in a building a few doors away at 566 Atlantic Avenue, above what is now a perfume factory, with just enough room for a desk, a few chairs, a phone and a fax machine.
The center’s stated purpose was to raise money and recruit fighters to help the United States-backed Afghan mujahedeen, who rebelled against the Communist Government in Afghanistan after an invasion by the Soviet Union in 1979.
Terrorist Headquarters in the U.S.
People in the neighborhood who remember Alkifah Center say it appeared to be a shoestring operation, although court papers suggest that tens of thousands of dollars flowed through its bank accounts in its heyday in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. The center was set up by Mustafa Shalabi who recruited Mahmud Abouhalima, a central figure in the World Trade Center bombing. Abouhalima later met with government officials without a lawyer and provided a detailed account of the Alkifah Refugee Center.
Afghan Warfare
Abouhalima brought forth a lot of intriguing information, but none more intriguing than the name Mohammed Odeh. That name, similar to but not proven to be the same person, as Mohammed Saddiq Odeh. Saddiq Odeh has been charged with driving the truck that delivered the bomb in the attack on the United States Embassy in Nairobi. Federal officials declined to say whether the Mr. Odeh charged in the embassy attack this year is the same Palestinian whose name surfaced five years ago.
In his 1993 statement to investigators, Mr. Abouhalima made no mention of Mr. bin Laden, although Mr. bin Laden is known to have worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan during the war years. The war soon began to wind down, but many of the Arab men who had gone to fight, including Mr. bin Laden, stayed on but turned their religious fury against secular Arab governments and, ultimately, the United States military presence in the Persian Gulf and in Africa.
The turmoil in postwar Afghanistan echoed in Brooklyn, where the Alkifah Center was kept open.
Conspiracy Connections
After the war ended, Abouhalima said the Alkifah Center members began to argue over money, political direction and leadership. Enter: Mr. El Hage. Abouhalima told investigators that el Hage was a contact to buy guns, and also had several connections to the Alkifah Center. After a short time in gun dealing, a few bodies dead, and suspicion growing, el Hage moved to Sudan.
Sudan locals that knew el Hage thought he was the director of African Help, a private aid organization. But the government said el Hage was the secret secretary to bin Laden. It was discovered that the government followed el Hage for a year before embassy bombings. El Hage moved back to the United States and plead not guilty to any charges of conspiracy to kill Americans and lying to federal agents.
Alkifah Now
These days, Arab immigrants still congregate along the little strip of shops on Atlantic Avenue, where Arab food and novelties are sold alongside Islamic books. A few thousand pray at Al Farooq Mosque at the main Friday prayers, but it no longer has a reputation as a hotbed of radical Islamic activity.
Most of the men who were drawn to Alkifah Center in its turbulent days have melted quietly back into their communities, say people in the neighborhood familiar with the center’s history.
”In 1994 this mosque finally settled down,” said Abdulhakim Ali Mohamed, the American-born religious scholar who became the imam, or leader, of the mosque three years ago.
No one is permitted to misuse the mosque to preach politics or hate, he added. ”If there’s anything to say,” Mr. Mohamed said, ”I’ll say it.”
