The largest criminal investigation in American history has exposed the rough outlines of at least a half-dozen centers of terrorist support on US soil operating underground before the Sept. 11 suicide attacks, officials say.
Law enforcement officials say they believe suspected supporters of terrorism have stolen credit cards and used wire transfers to finance their activities, created false visas and identity documents, and moved frequently with like-minded Middle Easterners.
Arresting many, catching few
Investigators believe they have arrested a small handful of terrorist supporters among the more than 1,000 people, most of Middle Eastern descent, they have detained since Sept. 11 and they are searching for more.
"There are people in the United States who have association with, affiliation with, support of certain terrorist groups," FBI director Robert Mueller said Friday. "We're doing everything we can to identify exactly the extent of that activity."
The pockets of terrorist support exist in Boston, New Jersey, suburban Washington, Texas, southern California, and the Upper Midwest, particularly Detroit, the officials said, speaking only on condition of anonymity.
"We don't call each of them cells. We call them terrorist presences. They're almost like cliques. Clear in their hatred for America, and loosely working together," one law enforcement official said.
Officials said the suspected terrorists appear to be aligned with several groups, including Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and the Palestinian Hamas movement. They cautioned they are a small number among a large Muslim population.
The evidence is not clean and organized enough to suggest each suspect belongs to a specific cell, another law enforcement official said. But it draws the most comprehensive picture to date of terrorist threats on US soil.
The emerging snapshot is the product of a massive joint investigation by the FBI, immigration officials, Customs Service and other federal agencies. They have developed evidence through phone intercepts, surveillance, search warrants, meticulous reconstructions of money transfers and interrogations.
Hundreds have been detained or arrested, and others are being monitored in hopes they will provide leads to additional collaborators, officials said. But most of those in custody are not believed to be terrorists and are being held on technical violations in hopes they know something or someone of interest to the FBI, officials said.
The suspected activities span the gamut from fund-raising in Texas and recruiting among Arab college students in California to planning in Boston and Detroit of attacks overseas, the officials said.
Several locations also had money wire outlets belonging to the Barakaat network that US officials raided this month and accused of laundering money for al-Qaeda. The company denies those allegations.
The evidence shows suspected sympathizers are remarkably migratory, just like the 19 hijackers who crisscrossed the country from San Diego to Maine before their attacks.
A recent federal court filing details the extensive travels of two Middle Eastern men being held for possessing a cache of fake IDs that could have been used to assist terrorists.
On the road
The men entered the US in New York in fall last year, spent time in the same Washington suburbs where five of the hijackers got false Virginia identifications, moved to Ohio, where officials recently raided a money exchange suspected of assisting the al-Qaeda network, and then proceeded to Detroit, where they were arrested.
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