Not in Saudi Arabia, Iran or Indonesia, but in Washington D.C:

On a sidewalk in Shaw, a dozen Muslim men wearing red T-shirts gather an hour before sundown. Half line up quietly behind an imam. Facing southeast toward Mecca, they bow their heads and read aloud verses from the Koran. The other half spread themselves out and look up and down the street. After a few minutes, they switch places. The men have come not just to pray but to assume control over a crime-prone block.

Let me begin by saying I’m all for neighborhoods taking ownership of their city streets and reporting crimes to the local authorities. But I fail to see how that requires any religious element in order to achieve it.

Driven by the power of faith, the patrol has a secondary aim: to “call people to worship Allah,” said Khalil Davis, the imam for the Salafi Society of D.C. mosque.

Creating the perception of being for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice has long been a method by which Islamists gain support in local communities for what eventually becomes the imposition of Sharia. The group’s leader, Leroy “Mahdi” Thorpe, is at best described as a controversial figure, even in his own neighborhood, where a bitter election campaign took place last year to oust Thorpe from his position on the Advisory Neighborhood Council, which he had held for years:

Supporters say Thorpe has single-handedly shut down many of the crack houses that plagued the neighborhood for years, by simply going in with a bullhorn and telling the vagrants they had to leave. Thorpe co-founded the “Red Hats” volunteer patrol group in 1988, which, according to a campaign flier, has closed down 56 documented crack houses and hosted more than 142 anti-drug marches and rallies. The flier also states that Thorpe “supports viable economic development such as the rebuilding and retail opportunities for the O Street Market and neighborhood sit-down restaurants.” But according to Padro, who’s been on the ANC since 2001, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“He’d like to prevent business development from happening, especially [alcohol] licensing,” Padro says. “He’d like to prevent any development that is mixed-use or mixed-income. He’s held this community back for decades.”

If reactionary opinions about how alcohol licenses are distributed were Mr. Thorpe’s only questionable activities, perhaps there would be no concern. However, on September 20th, 2001, Thorpe was quoted in the Washington Post as calling the 9/11 attacks, “chickens coming home to roost.”

In addition, during the 2006 ANC campaign the organization D.C Homeowners Against Leroy Thorpe alleged that Thorpe had been arrested on rape charges in 1984, and was convicted on the lesser charge of simple assault.

Not mentioning the 20+ year old criminal verdict is perhaps understandable but ignoring the comments published in its own pages is unacceptable. The sad fact is that the Post is willing to ignore any evidence, or easily found controversy regarding Mr. Thorpe, in order to praise his anti-drug, and more to the point, his pro-Islam activities on the streets of D.C, streets.