Two men there were trying to get a shoulder-fired missile. This just in from Fox News, with thanks to DC Watson:
ALBANY, N.Y. “” Federal agents and Albany police raided a Muslim mosque overnight Wednesday and arrested two men for helping someone they thought was a terrorist, a law enforcement official confirmed to FOX News on Thursday.
A block of downtown Albany was sealed off with armed officers for several hours after the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agents executed search warrants at the Masjid As-Salam mosque and two Albany-area residences, officials said.
Yassin Muhhiddin Aref, 34, the Imam of the mosque, and Mohammed Mosharref Hoosain, the 49-year-old founder of the mosque, were arrested early Thursday morning. They are accused of reaching out to someone they thought was a terrorist trying to get a shoulder-fired missile to down planes in the United States.
FOX News learned from a law enforcement official, however, that that person was not a terrorist, and actually it was all a sting operation. The two men are accused of agreeing to help launder money to pay for the missile.
The men have ties to a group called Ansar al-Islam, which has been linked to Usama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terror network, according to law enforcement officials.