US arrests renew terror concerns

The father's attorney, Johnny Griffin III, stressed that his client, like the son, so far has been "charged with nothing more than lying to an agent."

The two men had seemed to fit in well in the community, which to some observers raises anew the prospect of innocent Muslims arousing suspicion and fear among their neighbors.

While some experts focus primarily on what the arrests say about America's homeland-security strengths, others worry about continued weaknesses.

Among their concerns is that, despite the intensity of America's war on terror, training camps like the one mentioned by Hayat apparently still exist.

"It is really sobering to think that this far after 9/11 , there are still Americans traveling to foreign training camps to become educated on how to kill Americans," says Aitan Goelman, a federal prosecutor in the Oklahoma City bombing and a former official with the terrorism and violent crime section of the US Department of Justice.

Still, questions have emerged about the training camp Hayat described. Some Some experts say a location at Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, is implausible.

In an FBI affidavit, Hayat is quoted as saying there were "hundreds of attendees from various parts of the world at this camp," who were given choices to carry out their jihad: in the US, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kashmir, or elsewhere.

Another concern is what some see as the growing complacency of the American public, thanks in part to the lack of major terrorist attacks since 2001. By conservative estimates, there may be about 100 Al Qaeda operatives in the US. A liberal figure - encompassing those who would support terrorism as well as carry out attacks - might be in the low thousands.

"There still may be just hundreds or thousands of such operatives in the US," says Gary Bowersox, an Afghanistan and Pakistan specialist. "No one really knows, but this just shows the fact that they really are here, just waiting for direction."

Others warn against overstating the risk. "The fact that there have been no attacks since 9/11 suggests that we shouldn't overreact [and think] they have big infrastructure here," says Bruce Hoffman, a researcher at RAND's Center for Terrorism and Risk Management Policy in Washington. "Al Qaeda has become a generic term.... So are these people really that or something else? We really don't know enough of the details yet."

• Material from wire services and The Washington Post was used in this story.

• Nearly 200 suspected terrorist associates have been charged with crimes since Sept. 11, 2001.

• Alleged terrorist cells have been disrupted in Buffalo, N.Y., Detroit, and Portland, Ore., and led to the arrest of 18 suspected terrorists.

• The FBI has worked with immigration officials to deport nearly 500 violators of US law.

And civil liberties concerns:

• A number of people faced terrorist charges that have later been dropped.

• The 1,500 reported cases of harassment and violence against Muslims in the US in 2004 is up from 1,019 incidents in 2003, the Council on American-Islamic Relations reports.

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