FBI officials met with leaders of Maryland's Muslim community in Frederick yesterday as part of a broader agency effort to combat terrorism by accounting for and building relationships with mosques and Islamic societies.
"If they have information about possible [terrorism], they need to know who to contact," said FBI spokesman Barry Maddox. "We're seeking their help."
Maddox added that the meeting, which included representatives from Montgomery County and Baltimore, was also intended to ease concerns among many Muslims that the agency is singling them out for scrutiny. The meeting was not open to the media.
Indeed one of the participants, Khalil Elshazly, who is president of the Islamic Society of Frederick, said he was greatly alarmed when the FBI contacted him about arranging a meeting last month. In particular, Elshazly said, he feared that field agents were building a database of area Muslims.
"If these meetings had just been intended to find out where we are in case the attorney general decides to put us in concentration camps, we would have had a problem with that," Elshazly said.
However, he and most other leaders present said they were reasonably reassured by the FBI officials' pledge -- made yesterday and at an earlier meeting Feb. 19 -- that while the field office is following orders to familiarize itself with area mosques, it is not compiling lists of members.
"It was very important for us to hear this," said Yahya Hendi, imam at the Islamic Society of Frederick, which has about 400 worshipers. Hendi said he was also pleased that the FBI officials promised that "they would never allow any discrimination by state government officials or the public."
Still, not all of the Islamic Society's members came away convinced. "One meeting is not enough for me to give them my total trust," Hisham Elbasha said.
Elbasha, a Palestinian living in Frederick, alleged that the federal government has carried out many aspects of its counter-terrorism campaign -- such as its tracking of Muslim charities and treatment of individuals suspected of terrorism -- with a callous disregard for civil rights.
"I came from a world where you're not allowed to speak your mind. Now as I speak here, I'm wondering if somebody's going to be knocking on my door," Elbasha said.
Gary Bald, who heads the FBI's Baltimore field office, suggested to the group that more meetings could help change that perception and said that he would be available to the Muslim community "any time, anyplace they need me to be. . . . I need them to get the opportunity to get to know me and the FBI," he said. "We want to be seen for what we really are."
The meeting also drew representatives from the Islamic Center of Western Maryland, based in Gaithersburg; the Muslim Community Center, based in Silver Spring; several national Muslim groups; and a number of local churches. Frederick city's chief of police and a representative of Frederick County's Human Relations Commission also attended.