Pakistani-American jihadis in Queens

Queens Muslim Group Says It Opposes Violence, and America

By ANDREA ELLIOTT

The young Muslim men, with beards and bullhorns, work the streets of Jackson Heights on the weekends. They surface at parades and protests around the city, loudly declaring America the enemy and advocating for an Islamic state. Several weeks ago, they publicly tore up an American flag as payback for the reported desecration of the Koran at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Their own videos of violence against Muslims, one with the title "Muslim Massacres," have recently appeared on Queens Public Television.

In the annals of New York City's political outspokenness and fringe-group culture, the Islamic Thinkers Society may seem unremarkable at first glance. But after 9/11, in the city most damaged and unsettled by the terrorist attacks, the emergence of this young, however limited, Muslim-American voice is strikingly bold. In its fliers and on its Web site, the group describes itself as an "intellectual and political nonviolent organization," but it bears a strong resemblance to Islamist movements in England that try to unite Muslims by inciting anger.

"Wake up and realize that the line has been drawn between the camp of Emaan and the camp of Kufr and there is no middle ground as of right now," reads a glossy publication by the group that is titled "Islamic Revival." In Arabic, Emaan can be translated to mean "faith" and Kufr, "disbelief."

A video of the group's desecration of the flag was posted on its Web site recently, as well as videos of several violent encounters between some of the members and a woman in Jackson Heights, who reportedly stomped on one of the group's posters before she was knocked - the group says unintentionally - to the ground.

Most often, the group appears on the corner of 37th Avenue and 74th Street in Jackson Heights, amid a row of Islamic book vendors. There, the Thinkers show videos on television monitors depicting violence against Muslims, and hand out fliers with photographs of war-ravaged babies.

At the booth in Queens, and in protests around the city, it is usually the same small group of men who gather. They mostly comprise second-generation Bangladeshi and Pakastani immigrants, and some converts, who were raised in Queens and are now in their 20's.

Aside from their weekend routine in Jackson Heights, the Thinkers have staged at least five public protests this year. They are not subtle.

When a female professor from Virginia Commonwealth University broke with tradition to lead a Friday prayer for Muslims in March, the Thinkers gathered outside the Morningside Heights church where the event took place and accused the organizers of being a "band of prostitutes."