The Enemey Within [PBS Frontline] (2006) FBI investigation into possible AQ operatives in Lodi, CA

October 10, 2006

Soon after 9/11, an FBI informant made an alarming claim: Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had visited the town of Lodi, Calif. in the late 1990s and attended a mosque there. Moreover, two Pakistani imams preaching at the mosque came from a conservative Islamic school, or madrassa, linked to the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan. According to McGregor Scott, the U.S. attorney who led the federal anti-terror investigation, this was "an attempt by a group of radical Islamic religious figures to come to this country and … establish a madrassa to serve as a recruiting ground."

However, a deeper look at the evidence creates uncertainty about what kind of threat actually did exist in Lodi and provides a case study of America's response to the threat of domestic terrorism. In "The Enemy Within, " FRONTLINE and New York Times reporter Lowell Bergman examines the Lodi case and interviews FBI and Homeland Security officials to assess U.S. anti-terror efforts

The Lodi investigation drew the attention of senior U.S. officials. "A network of Islamic extremists in Lodi," Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte told Congress in February 2006, "maintained connections with Pakistani militant groups, recruited U.S. citizens, … [and] allegedly raised funds for international jihadist groups."

But when Bergman interviews one of the defendants, Umer Hayat, an ice cream truck driver in Lodi, about the terror investigation, the story seems less clear. "I just make [up] a story, that's all," says Hayat, "because they would not believe me when I was telling the truth." At the trials of Hayat and his son, Hamid, the FBI showed a videotape in which the Hayats confessed to attending a terrorist training camp in Pakistan, but questions remain. After arriving at the bureau's Sacramento office voluntarily, the Hayats were interrogated nonstop for 15 hours without a lawyer present. Separated, they gave different accounts of the camp they had visited, and the FBI did not conduct a follow-up investigation in Pakistan. "You can hear the agents literally dictate to [Hayat] what it is that they thought he was involved in," says James Wedick, a retired 35-year veteran of the FBI, who reviewed the videos for the defense. "And then he mimics back to them what he thinks that they want to hear."

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/enemywithin/