AP

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Picture: AP/Karly Domb Sadof

The New York Police Department recommended increasing surveillance of thousands of Shia Muslims and their mosques, based solely on their religion, as a way to sweep the Northeast for signs of Iranian terrorists, according to interviews and a newly obtained secret police document.

The document offers a rare glimpse into the thinking of NYPD intelligence officers and how, when looking for potential threats, they focused their spying efforts on mosques and Muslims. Police analysts listed a dozen mosques from central Connecticut to Philadelphia. None has been linked to terrorism, either in the document or by federal agencies.

Its spying operations began after the 2001 terrorist attacks with help from the CIA in a highly unusual partnership.

The May 2006 NYPD intelligence report, titled US-Iran Conflict: The Threat to New York City, made a series of recommendations, including: “Expand and focus intelligence collections at Shia mosques.”

The NYPD is prohibited under its own guidelines and city law from basing its investigations on religion. Under FBI guidelines, which the NYPD says it follows, many of the recommendations in the police document would be prohibited.

The report, drawn largely from information available in newspapers or sites such as Wikipedia, was prepared for Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. It was written at a time of great tension between the US and Iran. That tension over Iran’s nuclear ambition has increased again recently.

Terrorists

Police estimated the New York area Shia population to be about 35 000, with Iranians making up about 8 500. The document also calls for canvassing the Palestinian community because there might be terrorists there.

The secret document stands in contrast to statements by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who says the NYPD never considers religion in its policing. Kelly has said police go only where investigative leads take them, but the document described no leads to justify surveillance at Shia mosques.

Kelly has faced calls for his resignation recently from some Muslim activists for participating in a video that says Muslims want to “infiltrate and dominate” the US. The NYPD showed the video to officers during training.

Kelly described the document as a “contingency plan”, though that is not mentioned in the document and there is nothing indicating what would trigger such a contingency.

“This was a 2006 document that talked about what we would do if there were hostilities involving Iran,” he said.

“It seems to me that it would be prudent for us to have plans in that regard.”

Asad Sadiq, president of the Bait-ul-Qaim mosque in Philadelphia, said the NYPD was being unfairly broad.

“If you attack Cuba, are all the Catholics going to attack here? This is called guilt by association,” Sadiq said after seeing his mosque in the NYPD document.

At the Al-Mahdi Foundation mosque in Brooklyn, worshippers intoned their prayers while touching their foreheads to disks of clay on the floor, a Shia tradition.

“After 1 400 years, the Shias are being targeted in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, everywhere,” Imam Malik Sakhawat Hussain said after being told that his mosque was in the document. “If US authorities become suspicious of the Shia, I would say we are a very oppressed community of the world.”

– Sapa-AP