U.S. Muslim-FBI relations fraying

WASHINGTON, March 26 (UPI) -- The FBI's cutting once-close ties with a big U.S. Muslim group is hurting law-enforcement efforts to root out homegrown terrorists, various Muslim groups say.

The FBI wouldn't comment but said it cut ties with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of the largest Muslim-American advocacy organizations, because of "a number of distinct narrow issues" it refused to make public, The Christian Science Monitor reported Wednesday.

Fox News reported in January the severing followed evidence CAIR had inappropriate links to the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, once the largest U.S. Muslim charity.

Five charity leaders were found guilty of terrorism support Nov. 24. The foundation was accused of funneling money to Hamas, a Palestinian Islamic organization Washington declared a terrorist group in 1995.

A CAIR spokesman told United Press International Thursday its relations with the foundation were no different from the "normal relations that any group would have with another organization as part of a religious minority."

He said "relations" takes on unwarranted sinister overtones when it comes to a Muslim group.

He said CAIR and nine other big U.S. Islamic organizations were considering suspending outreach relations with the FBI following alleged FBI targeting of U.S. mosques and Muslim groups.

The FBI planted an informant "to pose as an agent provocateur" in several California mosques, telling one mosque attendee the FBI would make his life a "living hell" if he didn't become an informant, an American Muslim Taskforce statement sent to UPI said.