TerrorismAl-Qaeda tried to turn an Oregon ranch into a training camp

Oregon woman testifies that al-Qaeda tried to turn her home into a training camp // Source: newspakistan.pk

U.S.-born Muslim convert Eva Hatley testified in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, claiming that after opening her family’s Oregon ranch to local Muslims to teach them how to grow and can vegetables, the men turned her home into an al-Qaeda training camp. “Carloads” of fellow Muslims she met through her mosque arrived at her 160-acre ranch in Bly in 1999. “It wasn’t anything like I envisioned for the property,” Hatley said, as she testified at the trial of Abu Hamza al-Masri, who is accused of committing multiple terror crimes, including setting up the training camp and conspiring in a 1998 kidnapping in Yemen that led to the deaths of four tourists.

Hatley’s husband at the time, Ivan Rule, was temporarily out of town “shepherding” as the ranch became a training ground. The New York Post reports that al-Masri’s lawyer insisted the camp was more like a “Cub Scouts” club, with men riding horses, in the name of camaraderie.

Hatley refuted al-Masri’s claims, saying that one of the arrivals, Oussama Kassir, boasted about his past experiences with running training camps and being a “hit man” for Osama bin Laden. Kassir also told Hatley that al-Masri was his leader and that al-Masri sent him and others to the Bly ranch to establish a training camp where men could learn to train, shoot guns, and throw knives. “He said he was there to train men for jihad,” she said. “He said that Abu Hamza sent him. He intended to train them to fight.”

Kassir is a Lebanese-born Swede, convicted in 2009 of plotting to help al-Qaeda recruit by setting up a weapons training facility at the ranch and distributing terrorist training manuals over the Internet.

Haley claimed the visitors said the ranch resembled Afghanistan. She noted that some of the men had CDs containing information on how to “kill people” and some men even openly discussed “robbing and killing truck drivers” on nearby roads. Kassir also mentioned to Hatley that there were plans eventually to dig a hillside compound at the ranch for al-Masri to hide out in. “I was shocked,” said Hatley, who claims she fled the ranch in fear in December 1999, four months after moving in.

During the trial, al-Masri’s lawyer painted Hatley as paranoid and her testimony as unreliable. Hatley admitted to exaggerating her financial status before marrying her husband right after their first encounter, but she also said that she was fearful of her husband, who was married four previous times and had eighteen children. Hatley claimed that her husband wanted to kill her and he had “suffocated” his previous wife to death, but neither al-Masri or others at the ranch ever threatened her.

According to the Post, Hatley went into witness protection in 2004 but was removed from the program after telling her neighbors about her secret. Hatley was later removed from a second attempt under the witness protection program after she violated multiple rules, including driving with a suspended license.

Al-Masri is accused of committing multiple terror crimes, including setting up a training camp and conspiring in a 1998 kidnapping in Yemen that led to the deaths of four tourists. Al-Masri faces life in prison if convicted.