Distrust Hinders FBI In Outreach to Muslims

"We're spending more money on outreach . . . so we can say: 'Please help us. Please look for people who are turning away from institutions to extremism. Please be our eyes and ears,' " said Philip Mudd, deputy director of the bureau's national security branch.

But many FBI officers have grown impatient with what they see as Muslim resistance. The Muslims are "in denial" over the threat in their midst, one senior officer said, adding: "All they say is 'There is no problem. Stop picking on us.' "

Muslim leaders have frustrations of their own, ranging far beyond incidents such as the JIS case. Immigration sweeps following the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacks and mandatory registrations long ago convinced them that the FBI sees Muslims as suspects rather than partners.

"How much cooperation can we give . . . at the same time we ourselves are part of the problem in [their] eyes?" asked Sadullah Khan, director of the Islamic Center of Irvine, a city between Los Angeles and San Diego.

Hundreds gathered at a meeting last summer to angrily confront FBI officials after an agent's public comment, quickly contradicted by headquarters, that the bureau was "monitoring" Muslim student groups at the University of California at Irvine.

J. Stephen Tidwell, the assistant director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles field office, is the bureau's point man for relations with a Muslim community spread across seven Southern California counties. He spends many Fridays attending services at mosques.

How is the outreach effort going? "As with any, and I'll use the word 'family,' there are family disagreements," Tidwell said. "There are times when we agree to disagree. I would say that overall, they feel comfortable enough with the relationship that if they've got a problem they'll call me."

Most days, his phone is ringing off the hook.

Constant Vigilance

After Sept. 11, federal officials warned of terrorist "sleeper cells" -- groups of al-Qaeda operatives who, like the hijackers who flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, had blended into cities and towns and were awaiting orders to launch new attacks.

Beyond sleepers, the FBI was on the lookout in this country for foreign Islamic "radicals" trying to recruit domestic Muslims to terrorist causes.

The White House has focused on combating the danger from without -- sealing borders, tapping overseas telephone calls and fighting terrorists "over there" so they do not have to be fought "here." But federal counterterrorism and law enforcement officials have issued increasingly dire warnings of a threat from within.

Homegrown or "self-starting" terrorism has become a reality in Europe. The 2004 bombing of commuter trains outside Madrid, attacks on British buses and subways in 2005, and last summer's discovery of plans to blow up U.S.-bound commercial airliners were all tied to young men "inspired" by al-Qaeda but with no tangible connections to it or any other known terrorist groups. Most of the alleged perpetrators are young men of Middle Eastern, South Asian or North African parentage who had spent all or most of their lives in secular Europe.