Feds: Bly compared to Afghanistan

BLY, Ore. — Late in November 1999, James Ujaama arrived in this Southern Oregon community with two men from a London mosque who were said to be scouting a ranch as a potential jihad training camp.

The idea might seem odd, but Ujaama appeared to think the land had great potential. In a fax about the land, he wrote that the terrain was comparable to Afghanistan and could conceal guns, ammunition and even bunkers, according to a federal indictment returned yesterday charging Ujaama with conspiracy to support terrorism.

But the reality of Bly failed to live up to the hype.

Ujaama, a Seattle entrepreneur and community activist, held no title to the property. There was little infrastructure or housing to support a camp. According to sources at the ranch, the two London scouts lived in tiny travel trailers that lacked toilets or even running water, and took their meals in a third, rat-infested trailer.

They stretched out meager food supplies by hunting rabbits, quails and even robins.

In a decade that saw the rise of jihad training camps from Afghanistan to Bosnia, this alleged attempt to set up a Bly camp appears to rank as a small footnote.

But the scouting trip now looms large in a high-stakes Justice Department attempt to bring Abu Hamza — one of the most public faces of militant Islam in Europe and a man with a global network of followers — to justice in the United States.

Abu Hamza is one of three unindicted, unnamed co-conspirators listed in yesterday's indictment. In an interview with The Seattle Times yesterday, he denied receiving a fax from Ujaama about the Bly ranch. Abu Hamza also has denied serving as a recruiter for al-Qaida.

The other two unnamed co-conspirators, according to sources, are close associates of Abu Hamza who scouted the Bly ranch:

• Oussama Kassir, a tall, bearded Swede of Lebanese descent, who fought in Afghanistan, sources say. The indictment said he has identified himself as being a "hit man" for Osama bin Laden. He arrived in Oregon with his wife and two young children. He let a young girl at the ranch playfully braid his beard, according to sources there. But at other times, he discoursed on techniques for slitting throats with a knife.

• Haroon Aswat, a slim, quiet man from the Asian subcontinent who frequently read the Koran. Thin and wiry, Aswat impressed some of the Americans who met him as a fighter. "He was fearless — he would charge a hundred men," said Ali Shahid Abdul-Raheem, a Muslim convert from Auburn who later met Aswat in Seattle.

Kassir and Aswat were dismayed by conditions at the ranch, according to sources who were there. On the night of their arrival, Ujaama did not even have a key to unlock the gate to the entry road. While everyone waited in the dark, he had to walk nearly a mile up the road to find a tenant who could open it.

Kassir said he had paid a substantial sum for what he thought was an interest in the camp, according to sources. Frustrated and angry about the situation, they said, he talked about killing Ujaama, and no one was sure if he was serious.

Ujaama has denied trying to aid terrorists. In a press statement released this week, he said he is "innocent of any wrongdoing" and accused the Justice Department of seeking "to blackmail me" and leaking false information in "a witch-hunt."

Ujaama, born in Denver and raised in Seattle, once owned a small computer store here and wrote a guide to inspire young entrepreneurs. In 1997 he became a follower of cleric Abu Hamza and moved to London. There, Ujaama emerged as a key aide to Abu Hamza, maintaining a Web site known as Supporters of Shariah that helped spread the imam's militant views to a global audience.

Throughout his time in London, Ujaama kept in close contact with a small group of Abu Hamza followers who gathered to pray in a now-defunct Seattle mosque in the Central Area.

Ujaama was first drawn to Bly by a prayer leader in the Seattle mosque, Semi Osman. By October 1999, Osman had moved his family from Seattle to Bly in hopes of a simpler life where they could raise animals and grow a few crops. They invited other members of the Seattle group to sample the country life.

In October and early November 1999, Ujaama joined about a dozen other members of the Seattle group in at least two visits to the ranch. They rode horses and practiced their marksmanship with semiautomatic weapons, according to sources there.

Yesterday's indictment said Ujaama, at the ranch, "helped lead discussions concerning the need for further training in Afghanistan, the commission of armed robberies, the building of underground bunkers to hide ammunition, and the creation of poisonous materials for public consumption."

But Abdul-Raheem, the Auburn convert, said he heard no talk of terrorism training there in his visit to the ranch in October 1999. He found the place cold, inhospitable and far too isolated. He questioned the idea of a Bly camp. "It was going to be found out — it was in America," he said.

The property was purchased in 1996 by Esther Fisher, an elderly Washington woman who moved onto the property with a companion, a sheep herder named Ivan Rule. Fisher died in August 1999, and her name remains listed as a property owner, along with a trust that was created by Rule.

After Fisher's death, Rule invited Ayat Hakimah, an American woman who converted to Islam, to live at the ranch. They shared an interest in dogs and livestock. It was Hakimah who invited Osman and other Seattle Muslims to the property, according to Rule.

Rule said he was tending to sheep in California during the fall of 1999 and had never met or heard of Ujaama. Rule said he was aware of the two visitors from London and was told by Hakimah of a plan to try to peddle shares of the ranch through the trust he helped her create.

He said he thought the shares would be sold to Muslims from England seeking a retreat, not a jihad camp.

By February 2000, Rule said, all the Muslims were gone from the ranch and new tenants had moved in.

Seattle Times staff reporter Mike Carter and David Heath contributed to this story. Hal Bernton: 464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com.