Distrust Hinders FBI In Outreach to Muslims

[jamesinca]

Distrust Hinders FBI In Outreach to Muslims
Effort Aimed at Homegrown Terrorism

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 8, 2007; A01



LOS ANGELES -- The FBI's worst fears that hidden homegrown terrorist groups could take root in this country were fanned here in the summer of 2005, when four young Muslim men were charged with conspiring "to levy war against the United States" via deadly attacks on military installations and synagogues in Southern California.

The men belonged to what Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales called a "radical Islamic organization" named Jamiyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh (JIS), or Assembly of True Islam. They were discovered before they could carry out their alleged plans.

Although Gonzales claimed an intelligence victory, the FBI had only stumbled upon JIS. Numbers on a cellphone dropped during a gas-station holdup led local police to an apartment and a computer with documents that authorities said outlined a terrorism spree.

None of the four -- three U.S.-born citizens and one Pakistani immigrant -- fit a terrorist profile. They had no ties to foreign extremists or radical imams, and their public behavior had drawn no attention. JIS was also news to officials at the California state prison where a man accused of founding the group was serving a lengthy sentence for robbery and allegedly was directing JIS operations from his cell.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/07/AR2007020702314.html?referrer=email