Federal authorities on Wednesday arrested several members of a radical Sunni Islam group in the U.S., killing one of its leaders at a shootout in a Michigan warehouse, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
Agents were trying to arrest Luqman Ameen Abdullah, 53, at a Dearborn warehouse on charges that included conspiracy to sell stolen goods and illegal possession and sale of firearms. Authorities also conducted raids elsewhere to try to round up 10 followers named in a federal complaint.
No one was charged with terrorism. But Abdullah was ”advocating and encouraging his followers to commit violent acts against the United States,” FBI agent Gary Leone said in an affidavit filed with the 43-page criminal complaint unsealed Wednesday.
FBI spokeswoman Sandra Berchtold said Abdullah refused to surrender, fired a weapon and was killed by gunfire from agents. . . .
In the complaint, the FBI said Abdullah, also known as Christopher Thomas, was an imam, or prayer leader, of a radical group named Ummah whose primary mission is to establish an Islamic state within the United States.
He told them it was their ”duty to oppose the FBI and the government and it does not matter if they die,” Leone said.