If they were living in Tucson today, Hani Hanjour and Wadih El-Hage would have a hard time going unnoticed.
Hanjour and El-Hage were among an intermittent stream of Muslim extremists who spent time in Arizona from the late 1980s through 2000.
Hanjour lived in Tucson in 1991 and took flight training in the Phoenix area in 1997 before joining the 9/11 hijackers and piloting the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. El-Hage, an assistant to Osama bin Laden, lived in Tucson from 1987 to 1992 and was one of the organizers of the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
They and others made Arizona a curiously well-traveled state among international jihadists, enough so that in 2002 the FBI and CIA authored a still-classified report called "Arizona: Long Term Nexus for Islamic Extremists."
But in Arizona as elsewhere, the 2001 attacks changed the way law enforcement and the public deal with suspicious people, especially those with extreme or violent anti-American feelings. Now, people are more likely to report them, and law enforcement has a way of dealing with the reports.
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Three anti-terrorism task forces are based in Arizona, one run by the state's Department of Public Safety, the other two by the FBI in Phoenix and Tucson.
"Every lead is covered, and it's run out to its ultimate conclusion, whether it's interviewing someone here locally or internationally," said James Turgal, special agent in charge of the FBI's Phoenix division.
Tucson's Muslim community also has relationships with the concerned agencies, said Maqsood Ahmad, president of the board of trustees of the Islamic Center of Tucson.
"Today we welcome any agency. As long as they maintain the rule of law and a professional environment, they're welcome to observe us, to do what they need to do to do the job. And we will support if it's called (for), if we have something to share with them," Ahmad said.
Tucson and the Islamic Center mosque were home to jihadists long before they turned their anger toward the United States.
Wa'el Jelaidan was president of the Islamic Center of Tucson in 1984-1985 but left in 1986 to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. In 1988, he helped found al-Qaida along with Osama bin Laden.
In 1986, the organization that later transformed into al-Qaida established its first American branch in Tucson, the New York Times reported in 2002. That group, Makhtab al Khadimat, distributed its literature from the Islamic Center of Tucson.
But in the 1980s, the U.S. government and the jihadists were on the same side. The CIA was helping organize and arm the "mujahedeen" who were fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. It was in the 1990s, especially after U.S. troops were based in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War, that al-Qaida turned its hostility toward the United States.
What Arizona offered the handful of extremists who passed through in the 1990s was educational opportunity, especially flight schools, as well as a warm climate and high rates of people moving in and out. But the atmosphere has changed for those who let their extremist intentions be known.
The Islamic Center, while home to many students new to Tucson, also has a large membership of longtime permanent residents, said Scott Lucas, an associate professor and interim director of the School of Middle Eastern and North African studies at the UA, and a Muslim. They have generally good relations with authorities and know that they are likely being watched.
"I don't think there's a sense of siege or anything," Lucas said. "But you just assume that there are probably some informants or what have you."
Star apprentice Anissa Tanweer contributed to this report. Contact reporter Tim Steller at 807-8427 or tsteller@azstarnet.com
