The Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The FBI is monitoring suspected terror cells in Minneapolis and several other U.S. cities, based partly on U.S. intelligence and information from al-Qaida members in custody, a terrorism expert said Tuesday.
“They’re clearly monitoring a whole variety of suspected cells in the United States,” Neil Livingstone, a Washington-based security consultant with close ties to U.S. intelligence agencies, told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis.
ABC-TV News reported several dozen of the suspected cell members are U.S. citizens who underwent terrorist training at al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan in the late 1990s.
ABC reported that Minneapolis is one of nine cities FBI agents are focusing on in the search for al-Qaida cells. The rest are New York, Boston, Portland, Ore., Houston, Seattle, Miami and two cities where men believed tied to Osama bin Laden’s network were arrested: Detroit and Buffalo, N.Y.
ABC said documents found in Afghanistan mentioned the U.S. cities where cells are believed to be located.
Meanwhile, Minnesota law enforcement officials had little to say about a terrorist investigation in the Twin Cities, the scene last year of the arrest of alleged Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and the shutdown of several money transfer operations with alleged terrorist links.
The FBI’s local Joint Terrorism Task Force “continues to investigate numerous counter-terrorism matters, and we do not comment on the specifics of those cases or specifics of any operations,” said spokesman Paul McCabe.
State Public Safety Commissioner Charlie Weaver said that he is aware that “there may be an investigation into a possible terrorism cell” in Minnesota, but that he knew none of the specifics.
Hennepin County Sheriff Patrick McGowan knows nothing about the alleged surveillance, although he has helped to coordinate the task force, said spokeswoman Roseann Campagnoli.
FBI Director Robert Mueller said recently that about 100 suspected terrorists across the country have been subjected to round-the-clock surveillance. ABC said hundreds of others are being investigated.
The FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies began selecting cities where cells might be operating about five months ago, he said. They have been helped by information from several alleged al-Qaida members who have been arrested, including John Walker Lindh, an American who was seized during the war in Afghanistan.
One law enforcement official told the Star Tribune a delegation from the Twin Cities flew to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to join in the interrogation of hundreds of al-Qaida members being detained there.
Meanwhile, the surveillance is stirring anxiety among Arab-Americans and in the Twin Cities’ Somali community.
Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, said at a news conference Tuesday that the government is unfairly targeting the Muslim community, and in particular Somalis.
“It’s installing a fear in the hearts of these people,” he said. “We are not terrorists. The Somali community are not terrorists. The immigrants are not terrorists.”
He said he did not know if there were terrorist cells in Minneapolis, but he added the report of surveillance “has the effect of creating a continuation of the witch-hunt atmosphere” in Minneapolis.