FBI question Yemeni Americans over possible links with al-Qaeda

Sunday, September 05, 2010

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FBI Federal Agents are questioning and interviewing Yemeni Americans in metro Detroit amid the U.S. government’s growing anxiety about the threat of terrorism emanating from Yemen, the Free Press reported

FBI in Detroit launched an outreach program to the local Yemeni community earlier this year. In recent months, agents have stepped up their interviewing and questioning of local Yemeni Americans, Free Press said. “We have a large number of American citizens who are in Yemen,” Free Press quoted Andrew Arena, special agent in charge of the Detroit FBI office. “Why are they there?”

According to Free Press, Arena is particularly concerned about the possibility of some Yemenis in metro Detroit traveling back to Yemen to become radicals in the same way that some Somali Americans from Minnesota have been going back to Somalia to fight with groups with ties to al-Qaeda. This month, federal prosecutors charged 14 people, many of them U.S. citizens from Minnesota of Somali descent, with ties to the terrorist group al-Shabab in Somalia.

“We cannot have another Minneapolis Somalia situation,” Arena said earlier this year while meeting with the Jewish community in West Bloomfield, speaking extensively about Yemeni Americans at the meeting. As Free Press reported, Arena’s real concern is with the Yemeni community and the growing trend similar to what he saw in Minneapolis with the Somali community, as Americans are going back to fight.

“I tell them, the parents, Do you want your kids to go back to be killed? While fighting for terrorist groups,” Arena said.

Free Press met with Yemen’s consul general in Detroit, Abdul-Hakim Al-Sadah, who said the FBI has met with Yemenis in its office to discuss the governments concerns. Al-Sadah and other local leaders say they support the dialogue and are committed to weeding out any extremists, though cautioned against stereotyping.

Arena made accusations against the Yemeni-American cleric whom U.S. authorities have linked to the failed attempt to blow up jetliner in 2009 over Detroit. According to Free Press, after that attack Yemeni Americans -- concentrated in Detroit, south Dearborn and Hamtramck --got “frequent visits and questioning by the FBI,” said Imad Hamad, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Free Press said many Yemenis in metro Detroit travel frequently between Michigan and Yemen to visit family; some deliver gifts and money to relatives, while others go to school or get married there.

Arena said there are a number of language schools in Yemen that are affordable and have become an attractive option for students looking to study Arabic and Islam. “The question is: Are some of these schools being used like the madrasahs were in Pakistan to send them into Afghan training camps. You got the same thing going on. You look at Abdulmutallab. ... His first stop in Yemen was a terrorist training camp there to find al-Awlaki. That’s my real concern with the Yemeni population, and to their credit, they see the same concerns,” Free Press quoted Arena as saying.

Source: Yemen Observer

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