yed Shafeeq Ur Rahman, imam of the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce (ICFP), claims that his mosque – the same mosque where Orlando terrorist shooter Omar Mateen regularly prayed at – condemns radical Islam. But if that is so, then why, following the shooting, would the mosque retain a spokesman who is a leader from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group that has numerous associations with the terrorist organization Hamas?
The Islamic Center of Fort Pierce or Masjid Subul-as-Salam was incorporated in September 2003. Its founder was Shafeeq Rahman. Today, Rahman is the mosque’s imam and president. The mosque is a converted church, located at 1104 West Midway Road and owned by Azaan, Inc., a Florida business run by the mosque’s Secretary and Treasurer, Imtiaz Jehan Khan.
Weeks ago, the mosque made the news, following the murders of 49 innocent people at Orlando’s Pulse LGBT nightclub by one of the mosque’s congregants. This had been the second large scale terrorist attack linked to the mosque in as many years.
The first was a suicide attack carried out in Syria by then 22-year-old Palestinian-American Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, aka Abu Hurayra al-Amriki. Abu-Salha was a follower of deceased Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaeda leader who died via a US drone strike in September 2011. Abu-Salha had flown from the US to Turkey and made his way over the border into Syria, soon to join up with al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front.
In May 2014, Abu-Salha, as a member of al-Nusra, drove a massive truck bomb into a restaurant in Jabal al-Arbaeen filled with Syrian government soldiers. This was said to be the first suicide bombing performed by an American within Syria.
The second attack associated with ICFP took place on June 12th, when Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, also an admirer of al-Awlaki, entered the Pulse in Orlando and shot and killed 49 people and injured 53 more. During the attack, Mateen placed a call to 911 to claim responsibility for the attack and pledge his allegiance to the leader of ISIS. He stated, “I pledge… allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the Islamic State.” He, as well, expressed his solidarity with those who carried out the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and Abu-Salha, who perpetrated the Syria suicide attack.