King: Suffolk focus of terror investigators for 'years'

Suffolk County was a focus of federal investigators tracking connections to terrorist organizations even before homes in the county were searched following the Times Square bomb plot, a government official and terrorism expert said Tuesday.

"Law enforcement has been concerned about Suffolk County for a while now," Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) told Newsday Tuesday.

The comments by King came on the day of the first court appearance of accused Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, who was arraigned in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on terrorism charges and ordered held without bail.

Leaders of Long Island's Muslim community said King's comments were unfounded. Nayyar Imam, chairman of the Muslim Alliance of Long Island, called King politically motivated and out of step with the reality of the Island's Muslim community.

"If he has this intelligence, he should bring it to us and we would happily help kick these people out of our backyard," he said.

King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said some individuals in Suffolk were a "cause for concern," but said that as far as he knew, no one had broken any laws.

Harvey Kushner, a terrorism expert who has consulted with the FBI and Suffolk police, said federal officials had been looking at the possibility of a link between individuals in Suffolk and extremist groups overseas, including the Taliban in Pakistan, "going back years."

"I can tell you with assurity that these concerns predate the Times Square bomber," he said. "The focus now is specifically on Suffolk because of the paper trail the Times Square bomber left us."

It has been reported that federal officials, based on information provided to them by Shahzad, have focused on informal financial networks. These include lending systems common in South Asian and Muslim communities known as hawalas. Federal agents searched locations in Shirley, Centereach and Ronkonkoma and conducted interviews related to possible financial links to Shahzad last week. Locations in Massachusetts, New Jersey and New England were also raided. No arrests were made in Suffolk.

Shahzad, 30, a Pakistan-born U.S. citizen, has admitted driving on May 1 into Times Square in an SUV packed with a makeshift bomb that failed to go off. He was arrested two days later at Kennedy Airport.

Dep. Chief Mark White, Suffolk police's head of homeland security and anti-terrorism, said Suffolk is a concern to law enforcement because large-scale attacks in London and other cities have been staged in suburbs. Suffolk "is at an equal risk as other counties, certainly not a higher risk," he said.

King said in the interview that he believes there is a "real problem" involving some mosques on Long Island. White said no surveillance was being conducted by local law enforcement at area mosques.

"I can't speak for federal law enforcement, but we don't monitor, target, or surveil any religious institution," White said. With Anthony Destefano