Office raided on suspicion of terrorist ties

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Office raided on suspicion of terrorist ties

Federal agents are raiding today the Dearborn offices of two charities suspected of having ties to terrorist groups in the Middle East.

A Dearborn police officer guarded the entrance to the office of the Goodwill Charitable Organization, a fund-raising office established by the Martyrs Foundation in Dearborn, on Warren Avenue, tucked between a grocery store and an import store.

The charity is not affiliated with Goodwill Industries, said Christine Bragale, spokeswoman for Goodwill Industries International.

Goodwill Industries International has sent the Muslim charity a letter in the past to get it to stop using the Goodwill name, Bragale said.

In Dearborn, several uniformed and plainclothes law enforcement officials shuttled in and out of the office, while bystanders and neighbors stood by watching.

The Treasury said in a news release that it "targeted Hizballah's support network by designating the Iran-based Martyrs Foundation, including its U.S. branch, and the finance firm Al-Qard al-Hassan."

The government also has frozen the assets of the Goodwill Charitable Organization, according to the news release.

"We will continue to target those who form the financial backbone of Hizballah, Hamas, PIJ and other terrorist groups that are attempting to destabilize Lebanon and target innocent civilians," said Stuart Levey, under secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, in the news release. "We will not allow organizations that support terrorism to raise money in the United States or to evade our measures and continue to operate simply by changing their names."

A search warrant was executed at the Goodwill Charitable Organization office, according to Imad Hamad, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

According to the Treasury, the Martyrs Foundation "channels financial support from Iran to several terrorist organizations’’ including “Hizballah, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)."

Federal agents are also raiding the Al-Mabarrat Charitable Organization, which has a Dearborn office on Schaefer Road, north of Warren Avenue.

Agents with the FBI, IRS, and the U.S. Secret Service were seen hauling away files and placing them into a van outside the office. Al-Mabarrat, whose headquarters is based in Lebanon, has held fund-raisers in metro Detroit in recent years.

Also, the FBI is holding a meeting this afternoon with Muslim leaders at the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights to discuss the raids, according to Dawud Walid, head of the Michigan branch of the Council on American Islamic Relations.

The meeting will include Imam Mohammed Elahi, who heads the mosque, and Walid.

A man who answered the phone at Al-Mabarrat said he could not comment.

On tax records, Goodwill Charitable Organization Inc. lists its address at a location on Michigan Avenue in Dearborn. No one from the charity could be reached at the site and nearby businesses said they were unaware of the charity.

According to tax records, Goodwill Charitable Organization received $167,628 in contributions in 2005, and $202,500 in 2004. Leaders of the group could not be reached for comment.

Hamad said that the allegations are just allegations for now, and that the groups should have their due process.

The Treasury Department's designation means that the government has frozen the groups' assets and prohibited any transactions with them by people in the United States.