Who will be the next bin Laden?
http://www.dailyherald.com/dupage/main_story.asp?intID=3826853
...excerpt...
KARACHI, PAKISTAN - After leaving university, Atta-ur Rehman traded his jeans and T-shirts for a beard and cap, his civil-service aspirations for a martyr's spot in heaven.
He used to spend his time playing cricket, but he is now in a Pakistani jail facing a death sentence on terrorism charges.
Rehman, along with nine other "comrades," is charged with carrying out a deadly June attack against a senior Pakistani Army general in Karachi. The general escaped narrowly, but 10 people, including seven soldiers, were killed.
Rehman's circle call themselves Jundullah (God's Army), and have close ties to al Qaida. Most are young, educated men, whom Rehman allegedly sent to training camps in Pakistan's remote tribal areas.
Rehman doesn't fit the mold of the typical al Qaida leader. Traditionally, most were Arabs who gained status by resisting the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Muslims in Carolinas feel targeted by FBI
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/nation/9864782.htm
CHARLOTTE — As early as this week, the FBI will begin interviewing Muslims across the Carolinas as part of what the agency says is a nationwide push to stave off a terrorist attack before the November elections.
Muslims aren’t the only ones who will be questioned in the effort, officials say. But they are the only group in Charlotte being contacted about the interviews ahead of time.
Local Muslims say the interviews again show how they’ve been singled out since the 9-11 attacks. Last year, immigrants from countries linked to terrorists were fingerprinted and questioned as part of a “special registration” effort. Many say they were interviewed by the FBI after the Sept. 11 attacks. About 8,000 Muslims live in the Charlotte area.
Last Saturday, Kevin Kendrick, FBI special agent in charge for North Carolina, gathered 40 to 50 Charlotte-area Muslim leaders to alert them to the interviews. Similar meetings are taking place across the state, Kendrick said.
Contacted by The Charlotte Observer, Kendrick would not say whether the questioning had started or how long the effort will last. He wouldn’t say what questions will be asked, how the agency will choose the people to interview, or how many people will be questioned. He did say agents will try to hold the interviews at their subjects’ homes, but would not rule out workplace visits.
One man who attended Saturday’s meeting said Kendrick told them the visits would start this week.
Area Muslims are reacting with anger and frustration.
“We’re trying to say, ‘The people that you’re looking for are not the people that we know,’ ” said Rose Hamid, a member of Muslim Women of the Carolinas who attended Saturday’s meeting. “The people who come to the mosque on Fridays are not the ones who are going to be doing these things.”
Hamid said she worries that Muslims may lose their jobs if FBI agents or police approach them at work.
Since 9-11, local FBI officials have met several times with local Muslims to forge a better relationship. Still, tension remains.
“I admire the fact that the FBI would send their head man in North Carolina ... and have an outreach like that,” said Inayat von Briesen of Charlotte, who attended the meeting. “But it’s hard not to feel like you’re being targeted.”
Von Briesen said he’s concerned that the interviews could become a “witch hunt” for those in the United States illegally.
Kendrick said immigration status isn’t the focus. “This is not a roundup,” he said.
Agents from all 56 FBI field offices nationwide have been ordered to step up their interviews prior to the November elections, said Bill Carter, an agency spokesman in Washington.
Local and state police could do some interviewing, Kendrick said.
Carter said intelligence officers gathered information last spring that indicated al Qaeda planned to attack the United States before the elections.
“We’re stepping up the efforts now because the window of time is growing smaller,” Carter said.
Asked if presidential politics had anything to do with the timing of the interviews, Carter said it is based on intelligence reports, nothing else.