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FBI: Interviews Of Muslims To Broaden

Jul 17, 2004 7:32 am By Robert Spencer

Anti-terror efforts meet with a predictable response from CAIR, Zogby, etc. They would do American Muslims a much greater service by being entirely open and cooperative; their cries of “witch-hunt” only increase suspicions. Nevertheless, I think the young man quoted at the end of the article, Alamoodi, is probably right: questioning like this doesn’t accomplish much, if anything. From the Washington Post, :

FBI agents have launched a series of interviews of Muslims and Arab Americans in the Washington area and across the country, hoping to glean information that could prevent a major terrorist attack during this election year.

A few dozen voluntary interviews of community leaders, students, businesspeople and others have been conducted so far, according to attorneys and Muslim activists. Authorities said they do not know how many people will be contacted, but the effort is expected to expand significantly in the next week or so.

The new round of questioning is also far more targeted than an earlier program of voluntary interviews with men from Arab and Muslim countries, which followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and was criticized for being ineffective and using profiling.

“This is not a general population. They are identified by intelligence or investigative information,” said an FBI official who spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with department policy. He added that the questioning did not signify that the people were under investigation themselves.

The questions being posed vary widely, according to attorneys, activists and interviewees. Several people in California and Arizona have been asked whether they knew anyone who had recently been in the Pakistani border region of Waziristan, regarded as a possible refuge for al Qaeda figures. They were also asked about Abu Nour, which agents identified as a mosque and school in Syria that was popular with American converts to Islam, the attorneys and activists said….

“Within two days, I received 10 calls from people freaking out because the FBI was contacting them,” said Deedra Abboud, executive director of the Arizona chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

She said that the FBI agents went out of their way to be low-key but that Muslims were fearful when they got the calls, worrying that they were under investigation themselves.

Leaders of Muslim and Arab American organizations have been trying to build bridges with federal officials since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Many say that the earlier interviews cast too wide a net and reflected the wrong approach.

“It creates fear in the community and accomplishes absolutely nothing,” said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute. The Justice Department has defended earlier interviews with Middle Eastern men and Iraqi immigrants, saying they provided useful information and were a way to build contacts.

Some activists said that Muslims and Arabs were nervous about responding to the FBI, in part because thousands of immigrants wound up being deported after being contacted in earlier phases of the government’s anti-terrorism campaign. Several people in the Washington area have told FBI officers that they will meet with them only if their attorney is present….

Yaser Alamoodi, a student at Arizona State University, was surprised to get a visit at home recently from a campus police officer with the local Joint Terrorism Task Force. The 27-year-old student, who is a Yemeni citizen applying for U.S. residency, said that he agreed to the interview and that the officer was friendly and polite.

Alamoodi said the questions included whether he knew anyone who had recently returned from Pakistan, anyone who had shown interest in a government building or agency or anyone who had shown extreme hostility toward Americans.

“The questions were just ridiculous,” he said. “I said, ‘You guys really think you’re going to get anywhere with these kind of questions?'”

Alamoodi said he was puzzled about why he was selected for an interview.

“I don’t go to the mosque that often,” he said, “unless they have free food.”

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