Free Republic

FBI agents arrested two members of a Central Avenue mosque in an overnight raid in connection with an alleged plot to buy a shoulder-fired missile that would be used to assassinate the Pakistani ambassador in New York, according to court papers filed today in federal court in Albany. Mosque members said the imam, 34-year-old Yassim Aref, who also spells his first name Yasen, was arrested early this morning. Another mosque leader, Mohammed Mosharref Hossain, 49, an owner of a downtown pizzeria, was arrested at his home, according to mosque members. The arrests are in connection with a money-laundering scheme involving...

ALBANY - A mosque leader charged with helping launder money in a missile plot thought all the weapon talk was a joke, his lawyer said yesterday - but prosecutors were not laughing. Imam Yassin Muhiddin Aref was jailed without bail after prosecutors questioned why his name was found in a notebook in a terrorist camp listed as "Commander Yassin, United States." They also unveiled a photo of the imam's co-defendant watching as an informant shouldered a real surface-to-air missile in the back room of an Albany-area convenience store. That was among the evidence cited by prosecutors in Albany Federal Court...