Terror Arrests Shock Albany Neighborhood
Aug 5, 2004 12:21 pm US/Eastern
(1010 WINS) (ALBANY) Two mosque leaders arrested on terror-related charges were described by relatives and friends as peaceful family men who came to this country for freedom and opportunity.
Yassin Aref, 34, the imam of Masjid As-Salam mosque, and 49-year-old Mohammed Hossain, a mosque co-founder, were arrested at their homes early Thursday morning. Law enforcement officials say the two were involved in an alleged plot to purchase a shoulder-fired missile that would be used to assassinate the Pakistani ambassador in New York, according to court papers filed Thursday.
"It's totally wrong and totally false and totally a lie," said Hossain's wife, Mossamat. Between tears, she said her husband is a businessman, not a terrorist.
Hossain, a father of five children, came from Bangladesh in 1985. After years of washing dishes and other kitchen work, he bought the Little Italy pizzeria in 1994, according to a profile published in the Times-Union of Albany this summer. The pizzeria and the mosque are in a modest section of the city filled with row houses and storefronts.
"I'm proud to be an American," he told the newspaper. "When I was in high school in Bangladesh, I looked at a map of America and I dreamed of coming to this great land."
Aref is a native of Kurdistan and came to the United States three years ago from Syria, where he was a student, according to his wife, Zuhor Jalal. Aref drives an ambulette besides his duties at the mosque.
"We come for freedom and job," Jalal said.
The arrests put upstate New York in the terrorism spotlight again, following the September 2002 arrests of six men from Lackawanna. The so-called Lackawanna Six were accused of attending a terror training camp run by al-Qaida. They pleaded guilty to supporting a terrorist organization.
At a news conference Thursday morning a few miles from the mosque, Gov. George Pataki said: "The fact is, there are terrorists among us who want to engage in acts to attack us again."
Agents raided each home separately after midnight. Mossamat said more than six agents stormed her home just as her husband got back from New York City to buy a plane ticket to Bangladesh for her mother.
Both wives said they had to wake their children and take them out while their homes were searched. And both women said they were confused why their husbands were taken away.
The three-year-old storefront mosque serves several hundred members, many who come for daily prayers. Members on Thursday morning saw several of the mosque's doors smashed open and federal agents on hand blocking access.
"I have all the keys," said trustee Rashid Abdul Haqq Hamzah. "If they had asked, I would have opened up all the doors."
Hamzah and other mosque members described their imam as a gentle man.
"He's a peaceful man that teaches us about Islam," Hamzah said. "The only reason we were created was to worship God, not to blow things up, not to buy things for terrorists."
Hamzah said mosque members knew for almost a month that someone was "stalking" them and had contacted Albany police, not knowing they were federal agents. He blamed the overnight raids on politics.
"I think George Bush is having problems in the election," he said.
"It is politically motivated."
LOL - peaceful, missile seeking muslims running a pizzeria. You really can't make this stuff up.
"It is politically motivated."
Ah, they are learning well from the Dhimmicrats.
BS......I have swamp land for sale too!
"It's totally wrong and totally false and totally a lie," said Hossain's wife, Mossamat. Between tears, she said her husband is a businessman, not a terrorist."
Gee, the women of the Buffalo 7 said the same thing. (ladies...and I say that lightly, we don't believe you!!)