Attorney general visits youth at a mosque

LOS ANGELES, July 17 (UPI) -- Attorney General Eric Holder, while on a trip to Los Angeles to announce stimulus grants, visited a mosque to meet youths, a spokesman said Friday.

Holder traveled west to speak about federal money to help fight drug trafficking and to help the victims of domestic violence. A less-publicized visit was to meet Muslim American young people.

"The point was to engage the Muslim community here in Los Angeles and make sure they understand this administration's commitment to work with that community," Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller told the Los Angeles Times.

The Thursday meeting was partially to warm up relations between the Muslim American community and the Justice Department, officials said.

A coalition of large Muslim organizations called for the Obama administration to address FBI actions. The coalition said some of these alleged actions were the "infiltration of mosques," the use of "agent provocateurs to trap unsuspecting Muslim youth" and the "deliberate vilification" of one of the nation's largest Muslim civil rights organizations.