Who is the Rise of the Moors militia group that stopped traffic on Massachusetts highway?
The group of 11 militiamen who ended up in an hours-long standoff with police in Wakefield on Saturday morning espouses a conspiracy-based, anti-government agenda that combines sovereign-citizen beliefs with those of the Moorish Science Temple. The group, self-identified as the Rise of the Moors, live-streamed its standoff on Saturday on its YouTube page, in which its leader, identified on the groups website as Jamhal Talib Abdullah Beym, said the group is not anti-government and was being extra careful not to violate the federal laws of the United States. Two group members held a Moroccan flag throughout the exchange, a tenet of the Pawtucket, Rhode Island-based groups ideology. The flag stems from the the largely Black groups belief that a 1787 treaty (fictitious) between the United States and Morocco grants them immunity from U.S. law, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Their beliefs tend to be a pretty standard mix of traditional sovereign-citizen beliefs with beliefs adopted or derived from the Moorish Science Temple, said Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation Leagues Center on Extremism. The groups sovereign-citizen beliefs mean that what you and I would think of as legitimate government is an illegitimate government that holds no authority over them whatsoever, Pitcavage said. In the video, Talib Abdullah Beym insisted that the militia is exempt from certain restrictions.  That right-wing ideology in the 1990s mixed with the beliefs of the Moorish temple, which is a religious sect that believes that African Americans, i.e. Moors, have certain special privileges and status, he said. So its very easy to combine those beliefs with sovereign citizens.  The Rise of the Moors group specifically exists only in Rhode Island, Pitcavage said is his understanding. He added that its unique to this group to have a paramilitary element to it, in contrast to most other militia movements. Indeed, Talib Abdullah Beym identified himself in the video as a former Marine. The group members said throughout their live streams that they were headed to training on private property in Maine, which Pitcavage speculates would likely consist of firearms drills and other military-like drills, based on other paramilitary groups videos hes seen online. Related Articles 11 people in custody after hourslong armed standoff on I-95  Militiamen arrested in Massachusetts highway standoff identified, arraignment planned Pitcavage said hes seen many situations over the years where many traffic stops go bad with these sovereign-citizen groups because they believe the police basically have no jurisdiction over them, he said. Oftentimes, the sovereign citizen ends up killing or assaulting officers, he said. You had two carloads of people, all of them armed, I was particularly grateful that cooler heads prevailed, and no one was volatile enough to precipitate anything, he said. An email on the Rise of the Moors website, which links to the YouTube page, didnt immediately garner comment.