'2,800 ticking time bombs': Mosques in U.S. offer terrorists 'short cut to salvation,' expert says

U.S. President Barack Obama waves farewell to students after his remarks at the Islamic Society of Baltimore mosque in Catonsville, Maryland on Feb. 3, 2016.Reuters

The estimated 2,800 mosques in the United States are "ticking time bombs" for Islamic terrorism, according to experts.

All U.S. states have at least one mosque each with California and New York topping the list with more than 500 mosques followed by Texas with more than 300, WND reported.

The report said as the number of mosques increases, Islamic terrorist acts also increase in the U.S.

The problem lies in the mosque, experts said.

According to Dr. Mark Christian, president and founder of the Global Faith Institute, about 80 percent of the 2,800 U.S. mosques are under the supervision of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose goal is to make nations comply with Shariah law.

"You have a new mosque opening every week in America," said Christian, a former Muslim who converted to Christianity.

Christian, living in Nebraska under the threat of a fatwa, explained that FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies don't understand the source of Islamic violence.

For years, he said, they study links between Muslims and al-Qaeda or Islamic State when they should be looking into mosques and learning about Quran and hadiths.

Christian said what is being taught in majority of Muslim nations is spiritual salvation.

"The problem is you have law enforcement agents walking into a mosque but they are looking for the wrong thing," he said. "They are trying to monitor mosques (back when they were allowed to do that before President Obama) to try to find dirt and what they will find [are] people seeking spiritual salvation, something all of us will look at as an honourable thing, but they are missing the ticking bomb."

He said the key is how a Muslim finds his salvation.

Christian said the common thing among the 9/11 hijackers, the Boston bombers, the Chattanooga shooter, the attackers on the Charlie Hebdo magazine, and the Paris and Brussels' attackers, is that they are a group of young men whose lifestyles were not pious.

They were not practising the five pillars of Islam which all good Muslims must observe.

He said there are Muslims who have fallen away from the faith and are considered sinners looking for a way out.

Christian said the mosque provides the vital link "from sinner to salvation" for the Muslim and their imam will offer two choices.

He said the facial expressions of the suicide bombers who targeted the Brussels airport provided clues to their motivation.

"The confidence you see of those guys walking calmly to their own death as they push their carts, they are not trying to blow up the airport to make the ISIS leader proud any more than the 9/11 terrorists were flying their planes into a building so they can make Osama bin-Laden proud," he said. "They are doing it to please their own Allah so they can gain salvation."

He said the mosque is the central part in the cycle of terrorism as it links the sinner and terrorist.

"He walks in as a sinner who has neglected his spiritual duties under Islam and is told this is what you need to do," he said. "The imam does not tell him to go blow himself up, he just shows him the life of Muhammad and says this is what you need to emulate."

He said those Muslims who have failed to practice their faith for years are told by imams to make up for the absence by praying every day or giving money to the poor.

"To neglect this will put you in hell," he said, adding that those Muslims are looking for a short cut to gain salvation.

"They do not want to do the hard work and go for the long haul. The choice is spilling your own blood for the cause of Islam, or working hard for the rest of your life trying to fulfill your duty as a Muslim with no guarantee of salvation at the end," Christian said.