Background

A December 2001 article by the Boston Herald cited Indian security concerns branches of the jamaat were related to Al-Qaeda. Yet "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid apparently did not remain with the group because they were not violent enough.^[8] More recently, on July 19, 2006, Indian authorities questioned two clerics of Tabliq-e-Jamaat in Tripura state regarding the July 11th Mumbai commuter rail bombings, which resulted in the death of 209 people and wounded over 700. In their defense Taibur Rahman, the leader of Tabliq-e-Jamaat in Tripura state, said, "Investigators are free to question them and be satisfied, but they should not be harassed."^[9] It is also alleged extremist members of MULTA, with ties to the Pakistani ISI, passed into Bangladesh under the guise of members of Tabliq.^[10]

According to an article published in the Winter 2005 of Middle East Quarterly, "In 1995, the Pakistani army thwarted a coup attempt by several dozen high-ranking military officers and civilians, all of whom were members of the Tablighi Jamaat and some of whom also held membership in Harakat ul-Mujahideen, a U.S. State Department-defined terrorist organization." A very direct comment from the FBI in the article stated, "We have a significant presence of Tablighi Jamaat in the United States," the deputy chief of the FBI's international terrorism section said in 2003, "and we have found that Al-Qaeda used them for recruiting now and in the past."^[11]

On January 18, 2008, 14 men who were alleged to have been members of the Tablighi Jamaat were arrested in Barcelona, Spain on suspicious of organizing a terrorist attack. During the raids, police confiscated material for making explosives, including four timing devices. Using international intelligence, it is thought the group was planning to carry out an attack on Barcelona.^[12]