Jamaat ul-Fuqra

Fuqra is an Arabic word that translates as “the impoverished.” Jamaat ul-Fuqra (“Community of the Impoverished”) was founded in the late 1970s by Pakistani cleric Sheikh Mubarik Ali Jilani Hasmi. An Islamic sect that advocates the purification of Islam by force and violence, the group is named on the U.S. State Department's list of “other terrorist organizations.”

Although active in the guerrilla war in Kashmir, until recently Jamaat ul-Fuqra had a low profile in Pakistan. In the United States, however, its members have committed at least 13 murders and firebombings and are currently believed to have been connected with the 2002 kidnap and murder in Pakistan of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and with failed “shoe bomber” Richard Reid.