Mosque shuns FBI informant

Aljazeera
12/5/2010

An FBI informant who attempted to infiltrate an Islamic community centre in the quiet Californian town of Irvine scared Muslim worshippers so much with his talk of violent jihad that they took out order against him, the Washington Post reported.

The FBI claims its use of such informants has prevented more attacks since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Yet its officials have said that they do not target Muslims - an argument that has long been taken with a dose of scepticism by some commentators.
 
The latest case follows revelations that a man who tried to bomb a Christmas ceremony in Portland, Oregon, did so not only whilst under FBI surveillance, but had been provided with fake explosives by its undercover agents.

Making matters worse for the agency, Craig Monteilh, the convicted fraudster whom the FBI sent into the mosque to spy on its members, has gone public and is suing the investigative agency.

The two cases are reviving criticisms over the government agency's apparent surveillance of Muslims in the US.

Southern Californian Muslim community leaders have expressed outrage over the FBI's methods, saying it undermines any efforts to build trust.

"The community feels betrayed," Shakeel Syed, the executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, told the Post.

"They got a guy, a bona fide criminal, and obviously trained him and sent him to infiltrate mosques," Syed was quoted as saying. "And when things went sour, they ditched him and he got mad. It's like a soap opera, for God's sake."

Trial by Entrapment (Adam Serwer - The American Prospect)

A new case in Oregon reignites concerns over how the government catches terrorists.
Adam Serwer | December 3, 2010 | The American Prospect

A plot to bomb the D.C. subway system. An attack on American troops at Fort Dix, New Jersey. An attempt to kill Americans holding a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon.

All of these potential terrorist attacks sound frightening, but not a single one was ever in danger of actually happening. They were all part of a series of elaborate sting operations orchestrated by the government in its attempt to be proactive about preventing domestic terrorism. It didn't want to wait for body counts on the evening news.

"One of the things that the Department of Justice decided to do in the wake of 9/11 was to focus on prevention and preemption," explains Karen Greenberg of the New York University Center on Law and Security. "If you focus on prevention or preemption, what you're talking about is informant or undercover cases."

The most recent sting, involving an FBI-facilitated plot by a 19-year-old Somali American named Mohamed Osman Mohamud to bomb a Portland Christmas tree-lighting ceremony, has reignited concerns in the Muslim community about whether these FBI operations, which involve scary-sounding plots that make for sensational headlines, amount to entrapment and strain the relationship between law enforcement and the Muslim American community. Muslim community leaders say they are torn between their desire to engage with law enforcement and offer themselves as the first line of defense against terrorism and their concern that the FBI's sting operations sometimes amount to fabricating terrorism threats that wouldn't otherwise exist.

While the government has had a stunning success rate in trying terrorism-related cases in civilian courts, only 1 percent of which end in acquittal, the propriety of the FBI's sting methods will be tested by Mohamud's lawyers, who have accused the government of entrapment. The Mohamud case, like almost one-third of the domestic terrorism cases involving Islamic extremism, relied in part on the vigilance of a Muslim informant -- reportedly Mohamud's own father, who told the authorities he was concerned about his son being radicalized. Federal agents later posed as terrorist recruiters to Mohamud who was ultimately arrested for allegedly planning a bombing alongside his "accomplices." Shortly after the indictment was announced, someone set fire to the Oregon mosque Mohamud was known to attend.

"When the FBI engages in tactics that involve fabricating fake terrorist attacks, it undermines that faith in the community," says Hussam Ayloush, director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' California branch, who worries that the stings give the false impression of an American Muslim community eager to harbor terrorists. "We have a fake, FBI-manufactured terrorist incident resulting in a real terrorist attack on the Portland mosque."

Other community leaders are reluctant to use the word "entrapment" to describe the FBI's operations but insist that the cases may sometimes blur a line between radicalization and actual criminal behavior. What is needed, they say, is for the government to partner with the Muslim community in order to intervene earlier in the radicalization process. "We want to see a division of labor -- that law enforcement focuses on criminal activity, and when it comes to ideas, thoughts, and behaviors, you allow experts in the community to deal with that issue," says Haris Tarin, director of the Washington, D.C., office of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. "If that exists, you won't have this conversation about entrapment."

This already happens on an ad-hoc basis, according to Mohamed Elibiary of the Freedom and Justice Foundation, who has worked with government officials in the past to intervene in cases involving young Muslims in danger of being radicalized. "The Joint Terrorism Task Force has community-based partners, who are vetted and whom they are comfortable bringing into the loop if the subject is 'fixable,'" Elibiary says. But he agrees that there needs to be a formal process instituted on a national level. "As long the FBI does these cases alone in the community, this is the kind of reaction you're going to get."

South Texas College of Law professor Dru Stevenson says the stings are attractive for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that they sow paranoia among terrorist recruiting networks. He adds that an entrapment defense in these cases is difficult to mount because of the standards in the federal court system.

"The defendant has to show that he was not predisposed; it is not at all enough to show but for the inducement he would not have committed the crime," Stevenson says. "Any evidence that you were already interested in doing this type of thing is probably going to be fatal to your entrapment defense." Federal agents know that -- which is why at some point during the investigation, they gauge the target's commitment. According to the arrest warrant in the Mohamud case, agents reminded Mohamud of the potential casualties and asked if he were "serious." Mohamud also allegedly tried to contact alleged terrorist operatives abroad in order to seek training, prior to federal agents becoming involved.

Alyoush concedes that "from a technical legal perspective," many of these cases might not amount to entrapment. "However," he says, "there is something immoral, or at least questionable, about the FBI luring confused, socially alienated, and sometimes unstable individuals into becoming terrorists."

These cases also trouble some civil libertarians, who under other circumstances would be more forcefully questioning the fairness of the stings. "Obviously there are some imperfections in the federal court system, but this is a triage situation," says one prominent civil-libertarian attorney. "The emergency is dealing with issues like Guantánamo, military commissions, and indefinite detention without trial."

Those concerned that the stings cross a line are worried it's already too late, since no one in any of these cases has ever successfully argued entrapment. "Have we already accepted the notion that if it's terrorism, forget it on 'entrapment,' because if you would do this under any circumstances, then you're going to suffer the penalty?" Greenberg says. "In terms of the record, that's the case."

Adam Serwer is a writing fellow at The American Prospect and a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He also blogs at Jack and Jill Politics and has written for The Village Voice, The Washington Post, The Root, and the Daily News.

Muhammad Ali Hasan Exposes Zuhdi Jasser on O'Reilly - Topic: FBI's Terror Sting

O'Reilly Factor Follow Up: FBI Terror Sting Remains Controversial

The FBI successfully thwarts its own Terrorist plot

By Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com
11/28/2010



The FBI is obviously quite pleased with itself over its arrest of a 19-year-old Somali-American, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, who -- with months of encouragement, support and money from the FBI's own undercover agents -- allegedly attempted to detonate a bomb at a crowded Christmas event in Portland, Oregon.  Media accounts are almost uniformly trumpeting this event exactly as the FBI describes it.  Loyalists of both parties are doing the same, with Democratic Party commentators proclaiming that this proves how great and effective Democrats are at stopping The Evil Terrorists, while right-wing polemicists point to this arrest as yet more proof that those menacing Muslims sure are violent and dangerous.

What's missing from all of these celebrations is an iota of questioning or skepticism.  All of the information about this episode -- all of it -- comes exclusively from an FBI affidavit filed in connection with a Criminal Complaint against Mohamud.  As shocking and upsetting as this may be to some, FBI claims are sometimes one-sided, unreliable and even untrue, especially when such claims -- as here -- are uncorroborated and unexamined.  That's why we have what we call "trials" before assuming guilt or even before believing that we know what happened:  because the government doesn't always tell the complete truth, because they often skew reality, because things often look much different once the accused is permitted to present his own facts and subject the government's claims to scrutiny.  The FBI affidavit -- as well as whatever its agents are whispering into the ears of reporters -- contains only those facts the FBI chose to include, but omits the ones it chose to exclude.  And even the "facts" that are included are merely assertions at this point and thus may not be facts at all.

It may very well be that the FBI successfully and within legal limits arrested a dangerous criminal intent on carrying out a serious Terrorist plot that would have killed many innocent people, in which case they deserve praise.  Court-approved surveillance and use of undercover agents to infiltrate terrorist plots are legitimate tactics when used in accordance with the law.

But it may also just as easily be the case that the FBI -- as they've done many times in the past -- found some very young, impressionable, disaffected, hapless, aimless, inept loner; created a plot it then persuaded/manipulated/entrapped him to join, essentially turning him into a Terrorist; and then patted itself on the back once it arrested him for having thwarted a "Terrorist plot" which, from start to finish, was entirely the FBI's own concoction.  Having stopped a plot which it itself manufactured, the FBI then publicly touts -- and an uncritical media amplifies -- its "success" to the world, thus proving both that domestic Terrorism from Muslims is a serious threat and the Government's vast surveillance powers -- current and future new ones -- are necessary.

There are numerous claims here that merit further scrutiny and questioning.  First, the FBI was monitoring the email communications of this American citizen on U.S. soil for months (at least) with what appears to be the flimsiest basis: namely, that he was in email communication with someone in Northwest Pakistan, "an area known to harbor terrorists" (para. 5 of the FBI Affidavit).  Is that enough to obtain court approval to eavesdrop on someone's calls and emails?  I'm glad the FBI is only eavesdropping with court approval, if that's true, but certainly more should be required for judicial authorization than that.  Communicating with someone in Northwest Pakistan is hardly reasonable grounds for suspicion.

Second, in order not to be found to have entrapped someone into committing a crime, law enforcement agents want to be able to prove that, in the 1992 words of the Supreme Court, the accused was "was independently predisposed to commit the crime for which he was arrested."  To prove that, undercover agents are often careful to stress that the accused has multiple choices, and they then induce him into choosing with his own volition to commit the crime.  In this case, that was achieved by the undercover FBI agent's allegedly advising Mohamud that there were at least five ways he could serve the cause of Islam (including by praying, studying engineering, raising funds to send overseas, or becoming "operational"), and Mohamud replied he wanted to "be operational" by using exploding a bomb (para. 35-37).

But strangely, while all other conversations with Mohamud which the FBI summarizes were (according to the affidavit) recorded by numerous recording devices, this conversation -- the crucial one for negating Mohamud's entrapment defense -- was not.  That's because, according to the FBI, the undercover agent "was equipped with audio equipment to record the meeting.  However, due to technical problems, the meeting was not recorded" (para. 37).

Thus, we have only the FBI's word, and only its version, for what was said during this crucial -- potentially dispositive -- conversation.  Also strangely:  the original New York Times article on this story described this conversation at some length and reported the fact that "that meeting was not recorded due to a technical difficulty," but the final version omitted that, instead simply repeating the FBI's story as though it were fact:  "undercover agents in Mr. Mohamud’s case offered him several nonfatal ways to serve his cause, including mere prayer. But he told the agents he wanted to be 'operational,' and perhaps execute a car bombing."

Third, there are ample facts that call into question whether Mohamud's actions were driven by the FBI's manipulation and pressure rather than his own predisposition to commit a crime.  In June, he attempted to fly to Alaska in order to work on a fishing job he obtained through a friend, but he was on the Government's no-fly list.  That caused the FBI to question him at the airport and then bar him from flying to Alaska, and thus prevented him from earning income with this job (para. 25).

Having prevented him from working, the money the FBI then pumped him with -- including almost $3,000 in cash for him to rent his own apartment (para. 61) -- surely helped make him receptive to their suggestions and influence.  And every other step taken to perpetrate this plot -- from planning its placement to assembling the materials to constructing the bomb -- was all done at the FBI's behest and with its indispensable support and direction.

It's impossible to conceive of Mohamud having achieved anything on his own.  Before being ensnared by the FBI, the only tangible action he had taken was to write three articles on "fitness and jihad" for the online magazine Jihad Recollections.  At least based on what is known, he had no history of violence, no apparent criminal record, had never been to a training camp in Afghanistan, Pakistan or anywhere else, and -- before meeting the FBI -- had never taken a single step toward harming anyone.  Does that sound like some menacing sleeper Terrorist to you?

Finally, there is, as usual, no discussion whatsoever in media accounts of motive.  There are several statements attributed to Mohamud by the Affidavit that should be repellent to any decent person, including complete apathy -- even delight -- at the prospect that this bomb would kill innocent people, including children.  What would drive a 19-year-old American citizen -- living in the U.S. since the age of 3 -- to that level of sociopathic indifference?   He explained it himself in several passages quoted by the FBI, and -- if it weren't for the virtual media blackout of this issue -- this line of reasoning would be extremely familiar to Americans by now (para. 45):

Undercover FBI Agent:  You know there's gonna be a lot of children there?

Mohamud:  Yeah, I know, that's what I'm looking for.

Undercover FBI Agent:  For kids?

Mohamud:  No, just for, in general a huge mass that will, like for them you know to be attacked in their own element with their families celebrating the holidays.  And then for later to be saying, this was them for you to refrain from killing our children, women . . . . so when they hear all these families were killed in such a city, they'll say you know what your actions, you know they will stop, you know.  And it's not fair that they should do that to people and not feeling it.

And here's what he allegedly said in a video he made shortly before he thought he would be detonating the bomb (para. 80):

We hear the same exact thing over and over and over from accused Terrorists -- that they are attempting to carry out plots in retaliation for past and ongoing American violence against Muslim civilians and to deter such future acts.  Here we find one of the great mysteries in American political culture:  that the U.S. Government dispatches its military all over the world -- invading, occupying, and bombing multiple Muslim countries -- torturing them, imprisoning them without charges, shooting them up at checkpoints, sending remote-controlled drones to explode their homes, imposing sanctions that starve hundreds of thousands of children to death  -- and Americans are then baffled when some Muslims -- an amazingly small percentage -- harbor anger and vengeance toward them and want to return the violence.   And here we also find the greatest myth in American political discourse:  that engaging in all of that military aggression somehow constitutes Staying Safe and combating Terrorism -- rather than doing more than any single other cause to provoke, sustain and fuel Terrorism.

UPDATE:  A very similar thing happened last month when the FBI announced that it had arrested someone who was planning to bomb the DC Metro system when, in reality, "the only plotting he did was in response to instructions from federal agents he thought were accomplices."  That concocted FBI plot then led to the Metro Police announcing a new policy of random searches of passengers' bags.

Meanwhile, in Oregon, the mosque sometimes attended by Mohamud was victimized today by arson.  So the FBI did not stop any actual Terrorist plots, but they may have helped inspire one.

Et tu, Wikileaks? (Even you Wikileaks?)

Wikileaks is like the airport's naked body scanner for world leaders.
They all appear naked with their exposed shameful treason and hypocrisy. 

Disgusting!

Terror Cases Strain Ties With Some Who Can Help

By WILLIAM YARDLEY and JESSE McKINLEY
The New York Times
12/1/2010

PORTLAND, Ore. — The arrest in a plot to bomb a popular Christmas tree-lighting ceremony here has renewed focus on the crucial but often fragile relationship that many Muslim communities have with federal law enforcement agencies.

Many Muslim leaders nationwide say they are committed to working with the authorities to fight terrorist threats and applauded the work in Portland. But some say cases like the one in Oregon, in which undercover agents said they helped a teenager plan the attack, risk undermining the trust of Muslim communities that federal agents say is essential to doing their jobs.

The failed Portland plot is one of several recent cases, from California to Washington, D.C., in which undercover agents helped suspects pursue terrorist plans. Some Muslims say the government appears to be enabling and even sensationalizing threats that can lead to backlashes against Muslim communities.

On Sunday, a mosque in Corvallis, Ore., was firebombed. It had been attended by the Portland suspect, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, a naturalized American citizen from Somalia.

“Unlike the so-called plot at Pioneer Square, that was a real terrorist attack, against a house of worship,” said a man who attends the Islamic Center of Portland and Masjed As-Saber, another mosque where Mr. Mohamud worshiped.

“What the F.B.I. did can be seen in Corvallis,” the man said, one of several people who spoke with a reporter but refused to give their names out of concern that they would bring negative attention to the mosque.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. defended the Oregon investigation and others this week as part of what he called a “forward-leaning way” that law enforcement is “trying to find people who are bound and determined to harm Americans and American interests around the world.”


Hussam Ayloush, the executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said law enforcement was going too far.


“ ‘Forward-leaning’ seems to be basically if someone has not crossed the bridge, we will push them forward, we will tip them over the edge,” he said. “And that is not how a government should be treating its citizens.”


“My worry would be that the F.B.I. is pushing to a point where it becomes difficult to trust the F.B.I.,” said Mr. Ayloush, who added that he was a graduate of an F.B.I. Citizens’ Academy. “When people start doubting, then they might feel like, ‘Well, maybe it might make things worse if I call,’ and we don’t want this.”

Amid the tension, Muslim leaders say their communities are doing more than ever to help in investigations — a fact they say is overlooked by many Americans.

A November report by the Muslim Public Affairs Council said Muslim communities had helped law enforcement agencies foil almost 4 of every 10 Qaeda-related terrorism plots since the Sept. 11 attacks. The report is based on information the group draws from news media accounts, affidavits, academic studies and other sources.

“There is an enormous countertrend that has emerged within the last few years,” said Alejandro Beutel, the author of the report. “People are saying: ‘This is a serious issue, and we are dealing with this. We are not tolerating this.’ ”

Even as federal law enforcement officials have been criticized, they say their investigations have been strengthened by their outreach efforts and good relations with Muslims, including here in Oregon.

Leaders of mosques, including those attended by Mr. Mohamud, regularly attend meetings with law enforcement officials. And Mr. Mohamud’s father, Osman Barre, provided information before his son’s arrest about his increasing radicalization, officials have said.

Dwight C. Holton, the United States attorney for Oregon, said he would travel to Washington next week to meet with Mr. Holder to discuss Oregon’s participation in a new Justice Department program called Enhanced Muslim Community Outreach.

“The minute I heard about this program, I signed Oregon up,” Mr. Holton said, adding that the meeting was scheduled before Mr. Mohamud’s arrest. “It’s so important to do this outreach, and this program will allow us to do even more work, to do more face-to-face meetings with not just the community leaders but with members of the community.”

The events in Oregon have put many Muslims in unexpected and uncomfortable roles.

Shahriar Ahmed is a jovial 55-year-old engineer and a self-described member of a group of “nerdy folks” with postgraduate degrees living in suburban Portland. He is also the president of his local mosque, Bilal Masjid, with skills that he said leaned more toward fund-raising than faith-building.

“I’m not a theologian by trade,” said Mr. Ahmed, who knows only enough Arabic to get through his prayers. “I’m just good at begging for money.”

But with the arrest of Mr. Mohamud and then the fire in Corvallis, Mr. Ahmed has been fielding questions on topics ranging from Islam in general to how the aftermath could affect worshipers at his mosque. For him, the broader questions are not necessarily the most pressing.

“My 11-year-old son started crying in the back of the car,” Mr. Ahmed said, recalling a conversation about the fire. “I could not make him stop. He was saying: ‘Is our mosque going to get burned? Is our mosque going to get burned?’ ”

Colin Miner contributed reporting from Portland, Ore.; Isolde Raftery from Eugene, Ore.; and Malia Wollan from San Francisco.

In U.S. Sting Operations, Questions of Entrapment (NY Times)

By ERIC SCHMITT and CHARLIE SAVAGE

WASHINGTON — The arrest on Friday of a Somali-born teenager who is accused of trying to detonate a car bomb at a crowded Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Portland, Ore., has again thrown a spotlight on the government’s use of sting operations to capture terrorism suspects.

Some defense lawyers and civil rights advocates said the government’s tactics, particularly since the Sept. 11 attacks, have raised questions about the possible entrapment of people who pose no real danger but are enticed into pretend plots at the government’s urging.

But law enforcement officials said on Monday that agents and prosecutors had carefully planned the tactics used in the undercover operation that led to the arrest of the Somali-born teenager, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, a naturalized United States citizen. They said that Mr. Mohamud was given several opportunities to vent his anger in ways that would not be deadly, but that he refused each time.

“I am confident that there is no entrapment here, and no entrapment claim will be found to be successful,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Monday. “There were, as I said, a number of opportunities that the subject in this matter, the defendant in this matter, was given to retreat, to take a different path. He chose at every step to continue.”

Mr. Holder called the sting operation, in which Mr. Mohamud was under the scrutiny of federal agents for nearly six months, “part of a forward-leaning way in which the Justice Department, the F.B.I., our law enforcement partners at the state and local level are trying to find people who are bound and determined to harm Americans and American interests around the world.”

A study this year by the Center on Law and Security at New York University, which tracks terrorism cases, found that of 156 prosecutions in what it identified as the most significant 50 cases since 2001, informers were relied on in 97 of them, or 62 percent. The entrapment defense has often been raised, but as of September, it had never been successful in producing an acquittal in a post-Sept. 11 terrorism trial, the study found.

The Portland case resembles several others in which American residents, inspired by militant Web sites, have tried to carry out attacks in the name of the militant Islamic movement only to be captured in a sting operation, with undercover F.B.I. agents or informers playing the role of terrorists and, as in this case, supplying a fake bomb.

In September 2009, Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a 19-year old Jordanian citizen, was arrested and charged with placing a fake bomb at a Dallas skyscraper. In October, Farooque Ahmed, a 34-year-old naturalized American citizen born in Pakistan, was arrested and charged with plotting to bomb the Washington Metro after meeting with undercover agents and discussing his plans and surveillance activities, the authorities said.

Some Muslim leaders in Oregon questioned how the sting operation there was carried out.

Imtiaz Khan, the president of the Islamic Center of Portland and Masjed As-Saber, a mosque where Mr. Mohamud worshiped, said several people at the mosque had questioned why law enforcement helped orchestrate such an elaborate plan for a terrorist act.

“They’re saying, ‘Why allow it to get to this public stunt? To put the community on edge?’ ” Mr. Khan said.

Mr. Khan said he and other Muslim leaders met regularly with the F.B.I. and other federal officials. In May, he was among a group of Muslim leaders in the Portland area who issued a statement condemning an attempted bombing in Times Square and thanking law enforcement for its “outstanding work” in the case.

Jesse Day, a spokesman for the mosque and Islamic center, said the circumstances of Mr. Mohamud’s arrest had stirred “some distrust, a little bit, in the tactics” of law enforcement.

The government’s 36-page affidavit filed in the Oregon case lays out a crucial conversation between Mr. Mohamud and an F.B.I. informer at their first meeting, on July 30, 2010. According to the affidavit, the informer suggested five ways that Mr. Mohamud could help the cause of Islam, some of which were peaceful, like proselytizing, and some of which were violent and illegal.

Mr. Mohamud, the affidavit said, immediately picked a violent crime: becoming “operational,” by which he said he meant putting together a car bomb. The informer then offered to put Mr. Mohamud in touch with an explosives expert, setting off the chain of events that led to his eventual arrest.

Defense lawyers may have an opportunity to challenge the government’s account of that conversation. According to the affidavit, while most of the conversations between the informer and Mr. Mohamud were recorded, that one was not “due to technical problems.”

Still, in subsequent recorded conversations, the affidavit said, Mr. Mohamud picked the target, said he had wanted to commit such an attack for several years, and repeatedly demurred when told he could walk away if he did not have it “in his heart” to go through with it.

The question of how far the police may go in inducing the subject of an investigation to commit a crime turns on whether the facts show that the defendant was already predisposed to carry out a crime should the occasion arise.

Daniel C. Richman, a Columbia University professor of criminal law and former federal prosecutor, said it was largely up to juries to decide whether to accept a defense of entrapment, which in practice is often hard to win. “These are jury questions that by and large go against the defendant, although every case is different,” Mr. Richman said.

The Justice Department also has rules on how far investigators may go in facilitating a subject’s criminal activity. The F.B.I.’s domestic operations guide, which was overhauled in 2008, notes that courts have found it to be “legally objectionable” when government agents lead a political or religious group “into criminal activity that otherwise probably would not have occurred.”

The guide also has a long section of rules on what undercover agents and confidential informers can and cannot do, but it is almost entirely redacted from a publicly released version of the document.

F.B.I. officials have said the bureau requires legal reviews and higher-level approval of activities involving undercover agents and confidential informers to avoid putting convictions at risk with entrapment accusations. But they have made clear that once someone voices an intent to commit a violent act, undercover agents and informers are allowed to respond by offering to help the subject of the investigation obtain weapons.

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s a would-be terrorist who has expressed his desire to launch an attack, or a would-be drug dealer who has indicated an interest in moving a kilo of crack cocaine,” said Kenneth L. Wainstein, a former assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s national security division. “So long as that person has expressed an interest in committing a crime, it’s appropriate for the government to respond by providing the purported means of carrying out that crime so as to make a criminal case against him.”

William Yardley contributed reporting from Portland, Ore., and Scott Shane from Washington.

Was FBI grooming Portland suspect for terror?

By Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporter

PORTLAND — FBI undercover operatives helped fund Mohamed Osman Mohamud's would-be terrorism plot to detonate a car bomb during a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony on Friday at a crowded public square in the heart of the city.

Operatives helped him find components needed to create a bomb and schooled the 19-year-old Somali-born man in how to set off the explosives.

The sting operation enabled the FBI to amass a formidable amount of details about what a grand-jury indictment Monday charged was Mohamud's attempt to use a car bomb as a "weapon of mass destruction."

But Mohamud's attorneys and some local Muslims are raising questions about whether the operatives who posed as co-conspirators played their role too well.

Defense attorney Steve Sady questioned whether the operatives were "basically grooming" Mohamud to try to commit a terrorist attack.

"The information released by the government raises serious concerns about the government manufacturing a crime," according to a statement released by Sady and Steven Wax, public defenders assigned to represent Mohamud.

Mohamud, through his attorneys, pleaded not guilty on Monday.

Law-enforcement officials say that they gave Mohamud plenty of opportunities to opt out of the bomb plan and that he was committed to carrying out the crime at the time, place and location of his choosing.

"I am confident there is no entrapment here," Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday in Washington, D.C. "There were ... a number of opportunities ... that the defendant in this matter was given to retreat, to take a different path. He chose at every step to continue."

The handling of the case by the Justice Department and FBI won praise from some in Portland, including Mayor Sam Adams, who as a city commissioner earlier in his career voted in favor of removing the city from the joint terrorism task force formed by the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies.

"I think this was a really smart response with the federal, state and local law enforcement that resulted in preventing someone with what looks like clear criminal intent to do harm, to do harm with a weapon of mass destruction," Adams told KOIN-TV in Portland.

Still, Imtiaz Khan, president of the Islamic Center of Portland and Masjed As-Saber, a mosque where Mohamud worshipped, said several people at the mosque had questioned why law enforcement helped orchestrate such an elaborate plan for a terrorist act.

"They're saying, 'Why allow it to get to this public stunt? To put the community on edge?' " Khan told The New York Times.

The case is the latest in a series of sting operations that have involved FBI undercover operatives or informants posing as terrorists to help make a case against would-be bombers.

One of those cases involved four men who sought to blow up two Jewish synagogues in New York with the help of an FBI informant who provided fake bombs. Despite claims of entrapment, they were convicted in October. Also this year, a Jordanian man who sought to use a decoy bomb provided by the FBI to blow up a downtown Dallas skyscraper pleaded guilty to an attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and received a sentence of up to 30 years.

The Portland sting ended in high drama Friday when Mohamud allegedly made a cellphone call that was supposed to detonate the bomb at the tree-lighting ceremony, where 10,000 people had gathered.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Portland quickly released a 36-page affidavit detailing the sting operation.

But defense attorneys attacked the prosecutor's office for turning the affidavit into a news release to promote the case, and also questioned why the Justice Department waited so long to make an arrest. By busting Mohamud during his attempt to detonate the mock bomb, rather than in an earlier phase of the operation, the Justice Department may have compromised Mohamud's ability to receive a fair trial, Wax said.

Mohamud came to Oregon as a young boy from Somalia. He thought of Portland as an area overlooked by law-enforcement officials. "They don't see it as a place where anything will happen," he told an FBI undercover operative, the affidavit says.

Yet, in the nine years since the Sept. 11 attacks, Portland has been the scene of significant terrorism investigations.

One investigation, which included surveillance of a Portland mosque, resulted in the 2002 indictment of a group of men, including a former intern from the mayor's office, for conspiracy to levy war against the United States and other charges. A high-profile case in 2004 involved a bungled fingerprint analysis that ended up with a Portland-area Muslim, Brandon Mayfield, charged with involvement in a bombing case in Madrid, Spain. Those charges were withdrawn, the FBI apologized and Mayfield settled the case for $2 million.

The FBI investigations have spurred interfaith outreach efforts by Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders to promote understanding and tolerance.

"These issues brought a lot of people to the forefront to try to understand the Muslim community," said Iman Mikal Shabazz, director of the Oregon Islamic Chaplains Organization.

Shabazz said those efforts will continue. But he noted that Mohamud's arrest and a Sunday arson at a Corvallis mosque where Mohamud sometimes worshipped have created fresh concerns among many area Muslims.

"There is a heightened sense of awareness," Shabazz said. "The biggest concern is for children who need to go to school and women who need to go shopping."

Information from The New York Times is included in this report. Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com. Times researcher David Turim contributed to this report.

Residents condemn bomb plot, criticize FBI (MSNBC/AP)

By TIM FOUGHT
The Associated Press
updated 11/29/2010
MSNBC.com

PORTLAND, Oregon — Some residents of this famously liberal city are unnerved, not only by a plot to bomb an annual Christmas tree-lighting ceremony last week but also by the police tactics in the case.

They questioned whether federal agents crossed the line by training 19-year-old Somali-American Mohamed O. Mohamud to blow up a bomb, giving him $3,000 cash to rent an apartment and providing him with a fake bomb.

The FBI affidavit "was a picture painted to make the suspect sound like a dangerous terrorist," said Portland photographer Rich Burroughs. "I don't think it's clear at all that this person would have ever had access to even a fake bomb if not for the FBI."

Mohamud's defense lawyer said in court on Monday that agents groomed his client and timed his arrest for publicity's sake.

Public defender Stephen Sady focused on the FBI's failed attempt to record a first conversation between Mohamud and an FBI undercover operative. "In the cases involving potential entrapment, it's the initial meeting that matters," Sady said.

Attorney General Eric Holder defended the agents on Monday, rejecting entrapment accusations.

Once the undercover operation began, Mohamud, who officials said had no formal ties to foreign terror groups, "chose at every step to continue" with the bombing plot, Holder said.

To be sure, many Portlanders were unsettled that a terror plot could unfold in their backyard — in Pioneer Courthouse Square, as thousands cheered the tree lighting — and not in much higher-profile cities such as New York or Los Angeles.

At a time when people are focused on body scans and intrusive pat-downs to prevent terrorist attacks, some Portlanders wondered if the FBI had gone too far and unnecessarily scared residents.

"What is distressing about the incident is not so much that the FBI arrested or otherwise intervened," said resident Joe Clement, 24, "but that the FBI used him to create a scenario that scared a lot of people."

It is not unusual in Portland for actions by federal agents to be met with skepticism and criticism.

Portland was the first city in the nation to pull its officers from the FBI's terrorism task force in 2005. The move came after the FBI wrongfully arrested a Portland attorney as a suspect in the 2004 Madrid train bombings — a mistake that prompted an FBI apology.

"I don't think there will be much serious debate as to whether or not (Mohamud) should have been a person worth looking into," said resident Christopher Frankonis, 41. "Portland being Portland, and Portland being liberal, it will understand and accept" it.

But Portland being what it is, residents will "still want answers to questions about how it all went down," he said.

The Portland plot was reminiscent of other recent arrests. A 34-year-old Pakistani-American was accused of targeting the Washington, D.C., subway system in October and authorities say a 19-year-old Jordanian man tried to bring down a Dallas building with a truck bomb in Sept. 2009. In both cases, federal agents had set up elaborate ruses to ensnare the men.

In Mohamud's case, the FBI set up a sting operation to investigate him after receiving a tip.

Two undercover federal agents led Mohamud to believe he could detonate a bomb with a cell phone, helped him choose an apartment in Portland and instructed him to buy the equipment necessary to trigger the fake device.

Authorities say he parked a van full of explosives near the square on Friday night and was arrested shortly after he dialed a cell phone that he thought would blow up the bomb. He was charged with attempting to detonate a weapon of mass destruction.

Kim Bissett said she moved to Portland because it is a liberal city. She said most of the anger was from the suburbs, not from city residents.

"The angriest people are those from the suburbs, not necessarily Portland, which is very accepting," Bissett said.

A fire on Sunday destroyed part of the Salman Al-Farisi Islamic Center in Corvallis, a college town about 75 miles (120 kilometers) southwest of Portland. Mohamud occasionally worshipped at the center while attending Oregon State. No one was injured.

Police believe the fire was intentionally set and increased patrols around mosques and other Islamic sites in Portland.

At a news conference in Washington, Holder also said the FBI was investigating the fire. If the blaze is related to the arrest or to an attack on Islam, it "is something that I personally decry," Holder said.

"It is not something that is consistent with who we are as Americans," he said.

While leaders in the Somali community in the U.S. condemned the plot, some, including a friend of Mohamud, were concerned about federal agents possibly luring him into breaking the law.

Mujahid El-Naser, 20, said he didn't believe Mohamud would have gotten involved in the plot without FBI encouragement. El-Naser, who has played basketball with Mohamud, said he never heard him express extremist views.

"If you talk with someone enough, they'll be convinced they need to do something," said El-Naser, who gathered outside the federal court building with a couple of dozen people before a court hearing where Mohamud pleaded not guilty.

Mohamud's lawyer asked a judge to order the government to preserve whatever devices, storage media or locations might have been used for a July 30 meeting at a downtown Portland hotel.

At the meeting, an FBI affidavit said, Mohamud talked of "putting stuff in a car, parking it by a target, and detonating it." While the undercover agent was equipped with audio recording equipment, it didn't work, for reasons the affidavit left unexplained.

Sady said preserving the evidence would allow defense experts to examine it, and Judge John Acosta granted the request.

A defense of entrapment must prove that the government planted the idea of a criminal act in an innocent person's mind and brought about the crime so the government could prosecute it.

Key to the defense is showing the defendant wasn't predisposed to act criminally before the government got involved.

In this case, the FBI affidavit said it was Mohamud who picked the target of the bomb plot, that he was warned several times about the seriousness of his plan, that women and children could die, and that he could back out.

Mohamud "was told that children — children — were potentially going to be harmed," Holder added.

Authorities said they allowed the plot to continue so they could gather enough evidence to charge him with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.

Portland Mayor Sam Adams said he will review the city's decision to remove itself from the Justice Department's Joint Terrorism Task Force, a cooperative among state, local and federal law enforcement.

"We have a new federal administration," he said. "There have been changes to federal practices and federal laws."

Mohamud was investigated for rape in 2009 but never charged. The Benton County District Attorney's Office didn't find a reason to charge Mohamud with a crime after a woman whose name was redacted in the documents filed a sexual assault complaint.

Mohamud had sex with the woman in an Oregon State dorm room on Oct. 31, 2009. He said in the documents that he and the woman were "a little tipsy" when they left a fraternity party and returned to his dorm room.

Tests on the woman failed to show any controlled substances or common pharmaceuticals in her body.

Mohamud's attorney, Steven Wax, could not immediately be reached for comment.

___

Associated Press writers Jonathan Cooper, Tim Fought and Pete Yost in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

Christopher Hitchens: Why America will come to regret the craven deal Obama is offering Netanyahu

Why America will come to regret the craven deal Obama is offering Netanyahu.
By Christopher Hitchens
Monday, Nov. 15, 2010
Slate.com

...Now we read that, in return for just 90 days of Israeli lenience on new settlement-building (this brief pause or "freeze" not to include the crucial precincts of East Jerusalem), Netanyahu is being enticed with "a package of security incentives and fighter jets worth $3 billion" and a promise that the United States government would veto any Palestinian counterproposal at the United Nations. Netanyahu, while graciously considering this offer, was initially reported as being unsure whether he "could win approval for the United States deal from his Cabinet." In other words, we must wait on the pleasure of Rabbi Yosef and Ministers Atias, Yishai, and Lieberman, who have the unusual ability to threaten Netanyahu from his right wing.

This is a national humiliation. Regardless of whether that bunch of clowns and thugs and racists "approve" of the Obama/Clinton grovel offer, there should be a unanimous demand that it be withdrawn...

The only mystery is this: Why does the United States acquiesce so wretchedly in its own disgrace at the hands of a virtual client state?

Read Full Article