A graph contends the more devout a Muslim is, the more likely he is to be violent. An instructional document saying that in Islam, "war is the rule and peace is only temporary." The paperwork sounds like propaganda produced by Joe Kaufman or U.S. Rep. Allen West. But the documents were used to train FBI agents in counterterrorism.
Prompted by an investigation by Wired.com, the FBI this week purged hundreds of pages of similar training documents, saying they contained "factual errors," promoted stereotypes, or were in "poor taste."
And the bureau is continuing to review its training materials, with more questionable documents expected to be revealed.
For now, the training documents are a rare window into the inner workings of the federal agency that investigates and arrests terrorist suspects.
When two South Florida imams, Hafiz Khan and Izhar Khan, were charged with funding the Pakistani Taliban last year, local FBI officials made it clear the arrests were not an indictment of ordinary Muslims.
"I remind everyone that the Muslim and Arab-American members of our community should never be judged by the illegal activities of a few," said John Gillies, special agent in charge of the Bureau's Miami office.
But with training materials casting ordinary Muslims as prone to violence, the FBI seemed to contradict that message.
Khurrum Wahid, the Margate attorney representing Hafiz Khan, says there's "probably" an FBI informant in nearly every mosque in South Florida. If that's the case, what exactly are they looking for?
