FBI agents have launched a series of interviews of Muslims and Arab Americans in the Washington area and across the country, hoping to glean information that could prevent a major terrorist attack during this election year. A few dozen voluntary interviews of community leaders, students, business people and others have been conducted so far. The new round of questioning is also far more targeted than an earlier programme of voluntary interviews with men from Arab and Muslim countries, which followed the 9/11 terrorist attacks and was criticised for being ineffective and using profiling. ‘‘This is not a general population. They are identified by intelligence or investigative information,’’ said an FBI official who spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with department policy. Several people in California and Arizona have been asked whether they knew anyone who had recently been in the Pakistani border region of Waziristan, regarded as a possible refuge for Al Qaeda figures. Law enforcement officials decided to step up efforts to contact Muslims and Arab Americans because of intelligence reports that Al Qaeda is planning a large-scale attack in coming months in the US, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said recently. ‘Qaeda recruiting non-Arabs in US’
