Somali-American Terror Arrest Raising Specter of FBI Entrapment

Nearly 3,000 miles away from Albany, New York, Muslim community members in Portland, Oregon, are wondering today if the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has targeted them as easy prey for a counter-terror sting operation.

News that Somali-born Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, had been arrested in an elaborate plot to blow up a crowded tree lighting ceremony in Portland with a fake bomb -- provided by undercover FBI agents -- has elicited mixed responses. Muslims and human rights advocates, in particular, are seeing similarities with cases on the East Coast where critics allege the bureau entrapped vulnerable Muslims: in Albany (Jailed Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossein), Newburgh (the 'Newburgh Four') and New Jersey (the 'Fort Dix Five').

"I am very struck with the similarities of the case, particularly with the Newburgh Four," said activist Lynne Jackson, founder of the Albany-based Project SALAM (Support and Legal Advocacy for Muslims), in an interview with Change.org. "I also feel as though the FBI is playing off the same playbook, the same script."

Critics like Jackson say the FBI has targeted desperate people in vulnerable populations, created scenarios in which they were tempted to engage in plots against the U.S., and then nailed them for terrorism. In the case of Mohamud, who is now charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, undercover FBI agents had been working with him since June, posing as fellow "Muslim extremists" and even supplying him with a fake bomb.

"If you talk with someone enough, they'll be convinced they need to do something," said Mujahid El-Naser, who along with a couple dozen others gathered outside the federal court building in Portland on Monday where Mohamud pleaded not guilty. El-Naser told The Associated Press he knew Mohamud and that he believes he wouldn't have acted without FBI encouragement.

Mohamud's attorney, assistant federal public defender Stephen Sady, suggested the very same thing to reporters, that there was "potential for entrapment."

Imtiaz Khan, the president of the Islamic Center of Portland, Masjed As-Sabera, a mosque where Mr. Mohamud worshiped, told The New York Times Monday that several people at the mosque had questioned the FBI's motives.

“They’re saying, ‘Why allow it to get to this public stunt? To put the community on edge?’” Mr. Khan said. The Portland Islamic Center's spokesman, Jesse Day, told the paper that the incident had fomented “some distrust, a little bit," in the FBI tactics used. He also told the Times that "if this kid’s being radicalized, it’s not from the locals.” In that same story, community members who knew Mohamud said he had seemed to be a "well-adjusted American teenager," until "recent months" when he appeared "confused."

The Department of Justice quickly responded to the emerging complaints this week, saying that Mohamud had first tried (unsuccessfully) to reach out to known extremists in Pakistan and had been under the impression that his "bombing" would kill scores of innocent people, including children. They charge that the undercover agents had given the 19-year-old Somali-American the chance to engage in less lethal plans, but Mohamud wanted to follow through with the one that he perceived would have the maximum impact.

“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,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Monday.

“I am confident that there is no entrapment here, and no entrapment claim will be found to be successful.”

It remains to be see whether the Somali case will spark the same community protest as the three aforementioned cases generated in New York and New Jersey. In those cases, several grass roots organizations, like Project SALAM and Albany’s Muslim Solidarity Committee, sprang up to organize marches, generate petitions and even help to pass a resolution through the Albany Common Council in April. The resolution requests that the U.S. Justice Department appoint an independent panel to look into cases in which Muslims had been "preemptively prosecuted" in FBI terror cases.

At the time, Albany Common Council member Dominick Calsolaro said, “We showed that the impact of a federal government sting affects more than just the family, it affects the community. That people came to the Albany Common Council last night from so far, Newburgh, Brooklyn, Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and Maryland, shows that when the federal government does not follow its laws, more people than just the family are affected."

This latest arrest follows a pattern, Project SALAM's Lynne Jackson told Change.org, in which undercover agents or informants targeted poor and/or disaffected individuals who, up until the point of contact, had no connection to extremist groups or "cells" here or anywhere outside of the country. "I see this more and more, the FBI preying on young, vulnerable men who have no ability to do any of this without the FBI's direction and help."

So far, no jury has accepted this line of reasoning. In October, each of the Newburgh Four were convicted on charges that they plotted to shoot down military planes and blow up a Jewish center in the Bronx. The men face 25 years to life with their sentencing in March.

Meanwhile, Jackson and others will be sponsoring a public forum, "The Violation of Human Rights: The 'War on Terror' Continues at Home and Abroad," at Judson Memorial Church in New York City, on Dec. 10.

Photo Credit: Dave Newman