WASHINGTON, January 27 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Driven by the post-September 11 investigation of Muslims living in the United States, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Robert Mueller ordered the Bureau’s 56 field offices to tally the number of mosques in the U.S.A., causing a lot of eyebrows to be raised.

Mueller is not satisfied with the work of his agents to date. He is frustrated that his troops are still not aggressive enough in hunting down “terrorists,” putting forward a controversial initiative to keep a firm grip on Muslims there, the U.S. Newsweek magazine reported Monday, January 27.

Mueller has warned that if field offices don’t meet their pre-established goals, they may be subjected to “special reviews” by inspection teams from the bureau.

For their part, field offices learned of the new project earlier this month when they received a six-page questionnaire that asked about the number of mosques in their communities.

Speaking with one voice, Mueller and some FBI officials stressed that mosque tallies are only one of several criteria used to assess the “terrorist” threat in each region.

“This is part of a larger evaluation process,” said one senior official. “We’re trying to set performance goals and objectives for a particular field office. We’re not targeting mosques.”

Mueller and his fellowmen voiced deep concern about undetected “sleeper cells” and troublesome evidence that some mosques may be serving as cover for terrorist activity as a part of their crackdown on Middle Eastern men in the U.S.

As a part of its unfettered surveillance of communications, the FBI has decided to place bugs in mosques to combat “serious crimes” and to protect “national security,” so that they can monitor everyone and everything.

“I don’t believe this is the way to prevent more terrorist activity because it breeds more hostility,” said one Arab student.

However, Mueller’s new initiative has surprised many U.S. officials, including some congress officials.

When FBI executive assistant director Wilson Lowery Jr. briefed congressional staffers on the project last week, and explained that mosque tallies would be used to help set investigative goals, “there were a lot of eyebrows that went up,” said one of those present.

Sounding a discordant voice to Mueller’s initiative, some FBI officials acknowledged that the initiative could be politically risky.

“This is not politically correct, no question about it,” the weekly quoted one top FBI official as saying.

The approach raised concerns that the FBI was engaging in a new form of religious “profiling.”

“It’s frightening to hear that this is actual policy,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations. “This just shows how they are viewing every Islamic community in the country with suspicion.”

On May 2002, in the name of preventing terrorist attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft handed the FBI sweeping new powers to troll through cyberspace and monitor people at their places of worship, political rallies and other public venues.

FBI Cracks Down on Iraqi Illegal Immigrants   

Amid concerns that they could be connected with extremist groups or agents of the Iraqi regime, the FBI, in addition, has launched a search for some 3000 illegal Iraqi immigrants who have gone missing while visiting the United States and are among those being sought for voluntary interviews ahead of a potential U.S.-led war on Iraq, the U.S. daily Washington Post reported Monday, January 27.

U.S. officials believe that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has recruited Iraqi students studying in the United States to gather information and intelligence on U.S. technology.

“One of our top priorities is to find those who are here illegally who could be a threat,” a senior U.S. counterterrorism official told the daily.

“We don’t really know how big the problem is or how big the threat might be, but the possibility is real,” he added.

U.S. law enforcement officials, for their part, said the program has three main goals: to develop friendly intelligence sources within the Iraqi American community; to reassure immigrants that the FBI and other federal agencies will guard against any ethnically motivated attacks in the event of a war; and to locate immigrants whose whereabouts are unknown.

However, the new U.S. move could scare away Iraqis who oppose the Iraqi regime and are sympathetic with the U.S.

“There’s a lot of apprehension and anxiety in the community about these visits. If they’re trying to strengthen relations with the Iraqi community and the opposition, I don’t think this is the way to do that,” the paper quoted Mohammed Alomari, a spokesman for a Michigan-based Arab American group.

The search for the missing Iraqis has become one of the primary objectives of a broader FBI program aimed at locating and interviewing as many as 50,000 Iraqi nationals who have entered the United States as visitors or refugees within the last decade or so.