Exclusive: FBI Probes Muhammad's Ties to Ohio Mosque
Three past terror plots have been hatched by mosque members.
June 4, 2009— -- Nuradin Abdi was convicted in 2007 of planning to blow up an Ohio shopping mall.
Iyman Faris was convicted in 2003 of planning to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge.
Christopher Paul was convicted in 2008 of conspiring to use explosives against targets in the U.S. and Europe.
All three terrorists worshiped and socialized at a small mosque in Columbus, Ohio, and, according to David B. Smith, an attorney for Faris, were part of a larger group of jihadists and extremists who frequented the mosque.
The FBI now is investigating reports of links to that same mosque by Muslim-convert Abdulhakim Muhammad who allegedly shot and killed one soldier Monday and critically wounded another in a drive-by attack on a Little Rock, Ark., recruiting station, ABC News has learned.
According to law enforcement sources, they have received reports that Muhammad appears to have attended the mosque during a period from 2006 to 2007 when evidence indicates he resided in Columbus. It is unclear what, if any, links he had to the individuals already convicted.
However, his possible links to the mosque are one promising avenue under investigation as the government attempts to reconstruct Muhammad's path to radicalization and to establish firmly whether he acted alone in the recruiting station shooting.
The mosque, according to well informed sources, is a small house of worship that has regularly been frequented by foreigners with radical sympathies who, after their stops in Ohio, continued onward. The Imam of the mosque was not immediately available for comment.
Columbus has been identified as the jumping off point for Somalis residing in the United States, including Somali Americans, to become radicalized and then head overseas to wage jihad.
Muhammad most recently had come to the attention of law enforcement authorities following his arrest in Yemen last year while carrying a forged Somali passport.
Muhammad, 24, was the subject of a preliminary investigation by the FBI's Joint Terrorist Task Force and may have also been the subject of a prior investigation by authorities in Columbus, Ohio.
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