Sunday, October 23, 2005

Local FBI's No. 1 job: Terror war

More than 100 agents juggle 300 investigations; Detroit bureau creates full-time al-Qaida squad.

By David Shepardson / The Detroit News

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DETROIT -- Four years after the September 11 terror attacks, the FBI headquarters in Detroit has more than tripled the number of agents assigned to counterterrorism, becoming one of the nation's largest anti-terror units.

Most of the investigative efforts are focused on Metro Detroit's large Arab-American population, one of the biggest concentrations outside the Middle East. More than 100 agents, analysts and task force officers are assigned to terror-related squads, and of 29 major terror groups identified by the U.S. government, the Detroit FBI has active investigations involving 17.

Eric M. Straus, chief of the counterterrorism unit at the U.S. attorney's office, said there has been a "dramatic sea change in how we at the FBI and U.S. attorney's office do our jobs. We've gone from an old-time law enforcement mentality to an intel/law enforcement mind-set."

Local Arab-American leaders have mixed feeling about the heightened FBI scrutiny.

"FBI agents are frequent visitors to the community," said Imad Hamad, regional director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Dearborn. "People should feel good about more agents, more law enforcement. This gives us a sense of security."

In recent weeks, the FBI has interviewed at least 20 Arab-Americans and immigrants in Michigan, questioning them about donations they made to the Missouri-based charity Islamic American Relief Agency, according to Hamad and a lawyer for the charity.

The interviews prompted Hamad's group to write a letter to the FBI questioning the timing during Ramadan -- the holy month when observant Muslims make significant charitable contributions.

"Immigrants are expected to live their lives like angels, and some are worried that if they make a donation, the FBI is going to knock on the door," Hamad said.

Last October, the U.S. Treasury froze assets of the charity and six senior officials. Treasury Secretary John Snow said the group's international office in Sudan was "providing direct financial support to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida, Hamas and other terrorist groups." Hamad said much of the questioning was to "the hefty donors."

Agents from Detroit are also being used nationally and even internationally.

Recently, six Detroit-based FBI agents returned from a 90-day assignment in Baghdad, helping Iraqi prosecutors prepare for the trial of former President Saddam Hussein and other Baath Party officials.

Other Michigan FBI agents have chased down terror leads in central Asia and Pakistan and interviewed detainees at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The FBI in Detroit -- which covers all of Michigan -- is working on more than 300 terror investigations.

Indeed, the growth of the FBI in Detroit was in part behind last week's announcement that the agency will build a $65 million headquarters on an 11-acre downtown site yet to be chosen.

Most FBI investigations are focused on the funding of international terrorists, said Daniel D. Roberts, the special agent in charge of the Detroit FBI.

"We are aggressively following the flow of money," to the Iraqi insurgency and other terror groups like al-Qaida and Hezbollah, Roberts said in a recent interview.

To that end, the Detroit FBI now has three international counterterrorism squads. One is focused on al-Qaida, the terror group responsible for the September 11 attacks. Another focuses on Hezbollah while the third concentrates on Hamas as well as investigations that aren't immediately attributable to one of the three major terror organizations, Roberts said.

The U.S. government has named Hezbollah, a Lebanese group, as a terrorist organization. Hezbollah has conducted many high-profile attacks. The Palestinian group Hamas is also named a terror supporter for engineering suicide attacks in Israel.

Much of the local terror war is mundane. Agents check out hundreds of false leads -- like the tip about the Arab businessman who passed a briefcase to another man on Telegraph Road or the pilot who strayed too close to the Fermi II nuclear plant in Monroe.

Out of the limelight, the terror efforts quietly go on in Metro Detroit -- aided by the likes of a former Army Ranger who holds two doctorates and works as the intelligence analyst for the U.S. attorney's office's counterterrorism unit.

Before the September 11 attacks, there were about two dozen agents working counterterrorism and counterintelligence in Detroit.

The Detroit FBI has boosted the number of intelligence analysts from a dozen to 27, with about half the analysts assigned to terrorism investigations. It has also added about 10 agents in the last year.

The average FBI terror agent works 60 hours a week and might have 10 cases and 10 other leads assigned, said William Kowalski, the assistant special agent in charge of the Detroit FBI who oversees anti-terror investigations. FBI agents are called to the border or Detroit Metropolitan Airport at least every other day to check out tips.

A computer found in a cave in Afghanistan might turn up the name of a donor in Dearborn. "That computer is going to get analyzed in Washington, and we're going to check out the letter and find out if it's innocent or not," Kowalski said. "The way we've changed our way of doing things is nothing short of incredible."

Shereef Akeel, a Birmingham lawyer for the Islamic American Relief Agency, said there was no evidence that the U.S. affiliate had ever supported terrorism. Three of the group's former senior officials are from Michigan.

"We're talking about 20-, 30-, 40-year citizens who are grandparents, with kids who were born here. These are good people who have never supported terrorists," Akeel said. Last month, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton upheld the freezing of the group's assets.

U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Murphy is seeking to bolster his seven-person counterterrorism unit.

"The FBI is dedicated to the mission of fighting terrorism, and we're finding that our work is expanding," Murphy said.

The U.S. attorney's office has charged and won convictions against several Dearborn men who admitted sending money to aid Hezbollah. Others suspected of aiding terror groups have been charged with other felonies by the counterterrorism unit.

The successes have been largely overshadowed by an embarrassing episode.

The June 2003 convictions of two Arab immigrants of supporting terrorism stemming from a Sept. 17, 2001, raid of a southwest Detroit apartment were dismissed in September 2004 after a Justice Department review found that prosecutors had failed to turn over evidence to defense attorneys. Prosecutors promised not to retry the men on terror charges.

You can reach David Shepardson at (313) 222-2028 or dshepardson@detnews.com.