Not that anyone is likely to draw any lessons from this — not lessons about the NYPD cooperating with the FBI, which is what this article is about, but about making false and unwarranted assumptions about the loyalties of Muslims who appear to be “moderate.” The fact that there is no moderate Koran, or moderate Islam, ought to give officials a certain sense of reserve when recruiting these “moderates” and asking for their help. It ought to make them at very least ask potential “helpers” some pointed questions, questions that are crafted to show what the aide really thinks about Infidels, Sharia, non-establishment of religion, American society, and related matters, all pertinent. But such questioning is not even on the radar screen. It would be “Islamophobic.” It would not build bridges. So instead, we get this.
New York Jihad Plot Update: “How Using Imam in Terror Inquiry Backfired on Police,” by William K. Rashbaum and Al Baker in the New York Times, September 22 (thanks to David):
A decision to enlist a Queens imam in an effort to develop information about the man at the center of a long-running cross-country terrorism investigation backfired earlier this month.
In fact, federal prosecutors have now charged the imam, a onetime source of information for the New York Police Department, contending that he betrayed the police by warning the suspect and then lied about it, and maybe even coached him on what to say if he was questioned.
Several law enforcement officials have said the imam’s disclosures went a long way toward forcing their hand in an extremely sensitive investigation of a possible Qaeda plot. The situation left them scrambling to conduct raids and arrest the suspect sooner than they might have otherwise, a development that they said could make it harder to identify others involved and develop evidence against them.
Several officials — all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because much of the investigation is classified — have said that the inquiry, which had been under way for months, could well have continued, tracking the communications, meetings, plans and associates of the suspect, Najibullah Zazi, 24….
Current and former police and federal officials said the approach to the imam, and the resulting disruption, added to a long history of tensions and rivalry between the New York New YorkPolice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which in recent years have developed a new dimension: a clash of sorts within the Police Department, between its two primary antiterrorism units….
Current and former police and federal officials said that the effort on Sept. 10 to enlist the imam, Ahmad Wais Afzali, was undertaken by detectives from the Intelligence Division. They showed him pictures of the central suspect and three other men, some of the officials said.
In the subsequent hours, Mr. Afzali spoke both with the suspect, Mr. Zazi, a Denver airport shuttle bus driver, and his father. Court papers say he told the younger Mr. Zazi, who had driven from Colorado to Queens on Sept. 9 and 10, that the authorities had been looking for him….
Read it all.