The arrest of Portland terror suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud is sending waves of fear through Seattle's Somali community, KIRO 7 reporters learned on Monday.
"Oh, I'm really upset about what's happened," said Farhiya Mohamed, a family advocate at Southwest Youth and Family Services in West Seattle. "This young guy, what he's doing -- that's not Islam or what Islam's about. All of us, we're scared."
A suspicious fire over the weekend damaged a mosque in Corvallis, Oregon, that Mohamud sometimes attended. Farhiya Mohamed said that's exactly what she's worried about.
The FBI said Seattle-area Somali-Americans shouldn't have to worry.
"I want to reassure them that this investigation was about an individual and his activities and not about the Somali community," said Dave Gomez, who runs the FBI's local counterterrorism program.
He also said the FBI will go after anyone who tries to retaliate against Somali-Americans.
"If they're the victims of any reprisals or hate crimes based on their ethnicity and the ethnicity of this individual, we're prepared to investigate very vigorously," Gomez said.
Gomez said there was never any danger to Washington state or the Puget Sound region during the bust that brought in Mohamed Osman Mohamud, but that the FBI did alert Washington state, Seattle and Bellevue officials.
Source: KIROTV.com.
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