Posted on 08/05/2004 4:07:09 AM PDT by The Mayor
August 5, 2004, 6:48 AM EDT ALBANY, N.Y. -- Federal agents and city police raided a Muslim mosque overnight Wednesday, with armed officers sealing off a block in downtown Albany for several hours.
Authorities declined to immediately discuss the raid at Masjid As-Salam mosque.
An FBI spokesman said a press conference was tentatively set Thursday afternoon in Washington. Some mosque members held morning prayers Thursday on a nearby sidewalk.
WTEN-TV reported two men were arrested and are suspected of providing material support for terrorism. Calls to the U.S. attorney's office were not immediately returned. On Tuesday, William Chase, special agent in charge of the FBI's Albany office, said there had been no terrorism-related arrests in the area and relatively few nationally since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"But I think as time goes on you'll start to see an increased number of prosecutions as law enforcement increases its level of activity and starts looking at some of the ancillary things like financing and those type of things, the things that feed into the system that supports the terrorism," Chase said.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
Excerpt from the article:
U.S. officials have said that Ansar's members are thought to be linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant whose network is blamed for attacks on U.S. forces and their allies in Iraq.
The two arrests came as FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agents executed search warrants at the Masjid As-Salam mosque and two Albany-area residences late Wednesday and early Thursday, officials said. The men were identified as Yassin Aref, 34, the imam of the mosque, and 49-year-old Mohammed Hoosain, one of the mosque's founders.According to law enforcement officials, the two are being charged with providing material support to terrorism by participating in a conspiracy to help an individual they believed was a terrorist purchase a shoulder-fired missile.
The individual was in fact working undercover for the government and no missile ever changed hands. Aref and Hoosain were allegedly involved in money-laundering aspects of the plot, the officials said.
The investigation has been going on for a year and is not related to the Bush administration's decision earlier this week to raise the terror alert level for certain financial sector buildings in New York and Washington, the officials said.
Just heard this story on the local radio. They say the FBI moved in because one of the suspects baught an airline ticket. Wonder how long before the ACLU starts raising a stink.
"Something's afoot, Watson!"
Keep counting; you're still on the low side of it.
We should be doing MUCH MORE than that!
I don't think so... For prayer they holler at the top of their lungs over loud speakers... They were just planning a big wedding. The lawyers, ACLU, CAIR and the liberal judges will prove that. Watch and see.
"It's totally wrong and totally false and totally a lie," Hossain's wife, Mossamat, said in a phone interview.
She said more than a half-dozen agents stormed the family's apartment at about 1:30 a.m., just as her husband returned from New York City where he had gone to buy a plane ticket to Bangladesh for her mother.
/rant
They've done that in some of their storefront mosques in SoCal.
was anyone eating a BLT in the lunch room when the raid occurred? (obscure reference to yesterday's news)
LOVE IT!
Thanks, Mayor. You bet I am!
I have to run some errands. I will be back! :)
MSNBC is reporting raids relating to anthrax (2001) are being conducted in Newark NJ and Buffalo NY.
Because those who are in darkness hate the light, because their evil deeds would be exposed.
i live in the area because central avenue is a really large walking area... people walk by things all the time and its a neighborhood where ppl live and walk it. i wouldnt want people gawking at me when I was sitting in church saying the lors prayer thats for sure.
this is really really scarry omg... good for the fbi!!!! never knew it could happen here
You're right. All of them at least need investigating.
Thanks for the Ping!
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