WASHINGTON, 6 August 2004 — Two leaders of a mosque in Albany, New York, were arrested on charges stemming from an alleged plot to help a man they thought was a terrorist purchase a shoulder-fired missile, federal authorities said yesterday.
The men have ties to a group called Ansar Al-Islam, which has been linked to the Al-Qaeda terror network, according to two federal law enforcement authorities speaking on condition of anonymity.
US officials have said that Ansar’s members are thought to be linked to Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian whose network is blamed for attacks on US forces in Iraq.
The two arrests came as FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agents executed search warrants at the Masjid As-Salam mosque and two residences in the Albany area, about 200 km north of New York City, late Wednesday and early yesterday, officials said. The men were identified as Yassin Aref, 34, the imam of the mosque, and 49-year-old Mohammed Hoosain, one of the mosque’s founders.
According to law enforcement officials, the two are being charged with providing material support to terrorism by participating in a conspiracy to help an individual they believed was a terrorist purchase a shoulder-fired missile.
The individual was in fact working undercover for the government and no missile ever changed hands. Aref and Hoosain were allegedly involved in money-laundering aspects of the plot. The investigation has been going on for a year and is not related to the Bush administration’s decision earlier this week to raise the terror alert level for certain financial sector buildings.
