* Member of the “Virginia Jihad Network”
* Official of the Council on American Islamic Relations
* Trained with the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba
* Was arrested in 2003 for conspiring to engage in terrorist activities
Randall Todd Royer was born in 1973. In July of 2003, Royer, along with ten of his associates, were federally indicted for conspiring to engage in terrorist activities. Known as the “Virginia Jihad Network,” the group had been training with assault rifles in the woods of Fairfax County, Virginia and had been participating in war game simulations near the town of Fredricksburg, to practice for an Islamic holy war against the United States and its allies.
In addition to his involvement with this homegrown terrorist group, Royer also served as a communications expert and civil rights director for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR is a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy organization ostensibly formed for the protection of the civil rights of Muslims in the U.S. Royer is just one of several high-ranking CAIR members who has either been convicted of, or is suspected of, aiding Islamic terrorism.
Royer has a checkered past, which includes joining the Bosnian forces in fighting the Serbs in the Balkans in 1994. He also trained with the “Lashkar-e-Taiba” (Army of the Righteous), a violent terrorist outfit from Kashmir, which is reportedly linked with al-Qaeda.
In 2002 Royer was the Communications Director of the Muslim American Society.
Of Royer’s arrest, U.S. Attorney-General John Ashcroft stated, “Today’s sentences demonstrate the severe penalties for aiding terrorist causes. . . . We will not allow terrorist groups to exploit America’s freedoms to pursue their deadly goals.” Royer plead guilty in January 2004 to two counts of federal weapons and explosives charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison on April 9, 2004.