On Wednesday, February 11, 2009, the Christian Action Network premiered the documentary, “Homegrown Jihad: Terrorist Camps Around the U.S.” at Washington DC’s Landmark Theater. The documentary is about a network of at least 35 radical Islamic compounds run by a group called Jamaat ul-Fuqra under the label of “Muslims of America.”

“Act like you a friend, then kill him,” Sheikh Mubarak Gilani, the head of the group, is quoted as saying in the film. Gilani is seen in the documentary teaching tactics used in terrorism to his followers and instructing Muslims to contact his compounds in the U.S. to receive training in “Islamic military warfare.”

The documentary was met with praise from citizens and activists who attended the premiere. The members of the Christian Action Network were seen being thanked for their work repeatedly during the question-and-answer portion and after the event ended.

National security experts also offered praise of the film.

“…what if someone had produced a film that “connected the dots” before al Qaeda’s operatives did at a cost of nearly 3,000 American lives and, by some estimates, a trillion dollar loss to the U.S. economy?” asked Frank Gaffney, the president of the Center for Security Policy, in a column for the National Review.

“As it happens, those authorities have just been given a comparable gift in the form of a documentary about the terror next time.”

However, CBS News responded to the article by casting doubt on its accuracy, quoting an unnamed official as describing it as “sensationalistic” and claiming no intelligence indicated the group posed a threat. The Christian Action Network responded by noting that CBS based its article only on a trailer of the film, and failed to contact them to ask about the sources of the information presented.

The documentary is receiving widespread attention from some prominent shows. Martin Mawyer, the president of CAN, is scheduled to be on the “Hannity’s America” television show on Fox News on Monday, February 16, 2009, and Ryan Mauro, CAN’s national security researcher, was a guest on the Dennis Miller and Laura Ingraham radio shows the week of the premiere.