(Newsweek) - Mark Hosenball, Michael Isikoff and Andrew Murr The Pentagon is re-examining its military-chaplain program after officials confirmed that Islamic clerics assigned to minister to suspected terrorists detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were certified by two religious groups that are under investigation by the Justice Department. Capt. James Yee, recently arrested in Florida after a tour of duty at Guantanamo, was certified as a Muslim imam by the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences - a group whose offices were raided last year by federal agents investigating a web of companies and charities in northern Virginia suspected of ties to terrorist financing. The Army said Yee's religious credentials were also endorsed by the American Muslim Council's Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Office; the council's cofounder Abdurahman al-Amoudi has been under scrutiny in the same probe. FBI agents in Chicago first became alarmed five years ago that terrorist suspects were compiling lists of Muslims in the U.S. military for possible recruitment, but a proposal to investigate the issue then was rejected by FBI headquarters, apparently because of concerns over riling religious sensitivities.
2003-09-30 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive