An anti-Muslim Christian minister pled guilty in late April to threatening to attack Islamberg, New York, according to recently unsealed court documents.
Robert Doggart, 63, planned to attack the town’s Muslims and burn down buildings, purportedly working with nine men from a private militia, reports The Daily Beast.
Doggart, a Tennessee resident, allegedly planned to travel to Islamberg to carry out reconnaissance on April 12. However, he was detained by the FBI April 11. The agency was alerted to his intentions after Doggart posted radical messages on social media and through the role of an informant.
He said Islamberg “must be utterly destroyed in order to get the attention of the American people,” according to Times Free Press. During a meeting with a confidential source in Nashville, Doggart mentioned using molotov cocktails to attack Islamberg’s mosque, cafeteria and school. He also threatened to cut the city’s Muslims to shreds with a machete.
“Our small group will soon be faced with the fight of our lives. We will offer those lives as collateral to prove our commitment to our God,” wrote Doggart. “We shall be Warriors who will inflict horrible numbers of casualties upon the enemies of our Nation and World Peace.”
Doggart apparently believed members of the Islamberg community were plotting a terror attack, despite a denial from local law enforcement officials that any such plan existed, reports Times Free Press.
The one-time congressional candidate, who ran as an independent in 2014, pled to a single count of making threats over the phone, potentially facing up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
A representative of Islamberg’s Muslim residents told The Daily Beast that the community is “traumatized,” and Doggart “is not representative of Christianity, but more like the American Taliban.”
Islamberg serves as the headquarters for the Muslims Of America, Inc. The organization issued a press release detailing the incident May 15 and included a picture of the town’s children holding a banner saying, “Why do you want to kill us, Robert Doggart?”
Islamberg, a hamlet in the Catskills, has between 100-200 residents. It was founded by Pakistani cleric Sheikh Syed Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani and mainly the Black Muslims group from New York City in the 1980s.
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