FBI: Alleged killer may have eyed Atlanta

ATLANTA, June 4 (UPI) -- The FBI said it was looking at whether a Muslim convert accused of killing a soldier outside an Arkansas recruiting center also targeted an Atlanta Jewish site.

The Atlanta site was potentially one of several U.S. Jewish sites Abdulhakim Muhammad targeted, said an anti-terrorism group specializing in protecting against anti-Jewish attacks.

Muhammad, 24 -- who pleaded not guilty to killing Pvt. William Long, 23, and wounding Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, outside a Little Rock, Ark., recruiting office -- also had plans for an Atlanta "Jewish entity," an FBI spokesman told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Stephen Emmett would not tell the newspaper which Atlanta site Muhammad may have targeted.

The non-profit Secure Community Network, which monitors threats to parts of the U.S. Jewish community, said Muhammad also may have targeted "military sites (and) government facilities" beyond the Little Rock recruiting station as well as "Jewish institutions in several cities throughout the United States."

It did not identify which sites Muhammad may have targeted.

ABC News reported Thursday Muhammad appears in 2006 and 2007 to have attended the Omar Ibn el-Khattab mosque in Columbus, Ohio, also frequented by three men later convicted of anti-U.S. terrorism.

The other men are Nuradin Abdi, convicted in 2007 of planning to blow up an Ohio shopping mall; Iyman Faris, convicted in 2008 of planning to blow up New York's Brooklyn Bridge, and Christopher Paul, convicted in 2008 of conspiring to use explosives against targets in the United States and Europe.

The mosque's imam was not immediately available for comment.