The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MR. LEHRER: And I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. After our summary of the news this Thursday, we update the new indictments of the New York City terrorist cases, then the first of Charles Krause's two- part look at Islamic fundamentalism in the United States, a report on Nigeria, and a Newsmaker interview with Housing Sec. Henry Cisneros from the flood summit.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and 14 others were arraigned today on charges that they waged a war of urban terrorism against the United States. Early today, the radical Muslim cleric was flown by helicopter from an upstate New York prison to a landing site at the edge of the East River in lower Manhattan. He was driven in a motorcade under extremely heavy security to the federal courthouse. There, he and his followers heard the charges against them and pleaded innocent. Abdel-Rahman is accused of leading the group which authorities say bombed the World Trade Center in February and planned kidnappings, assassinations, and other bomb attacks. The indictment also implicates the ring in the 1990 murder of extremist Rabbi Meier Kahane and reopens the murder case against Muslim activist El Sayad Nosair, who was acquitted of state charges in the slaying. In Egypt, followers of the Sheik threatened to strike back at U.S. targets. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Muslim women and children blocked an aid convoy from leaving the Bosnian city of Mostar. Just yesterday, Croat refugees tried to prevent it from getting to the city. A convoy brought food and medicine to 55,000 Muslims trapped in Mostar's eastern sector. The Muslims said they believe they would be attacked again by Croats if the convoy left. A humanitarian official threatened to stop all aid to Bosnia unless the trucks were allowed to leave. The mainly Serb nation of Yugoslavia today accused Bosnia's Muslims of prosecuting -- of persecuting Serbs. They did so at the World Court in the Netherlands. A Yugoslav lawyer asked the court for emergency protection from the Bosnian Muslim forces even though outgunned Muslims control less than 10 percent of Bosnia. The request came one day after Bosnian Muslims asked the court to protect them from what they charged was Serb genocide.

MR. MacNeil: Nigeria's military ruler stepped down today after eight years in power. Democratic elections were held in June in the African nation, but the results were annulled by President Ibraham Babangita. He formally retired with a ceremony and a parade through the streets of the capital Abuja. Babangita said he and his senior military aides were making way for a democratic civilian government, and opposition leaders have denounced the interim government as illegitimate, saying the military would control it from behind the scenes. We'll have a report from Nigeria later in the program. South African police today arrested two black teenagers for the murder of a white woman from California. The suspects are members of a militant black organization. Twenty-six- year-old Amy Biehl of Newport Beach was dragged from her car, beaten, and stabbed to death by a mob near Cape Town last night. She was in South Africa on a Fulbright Scholarship and was active in efforts to promote a multiracial democracy there. Biehl was driving three black colleagues home at the time of the attack. She had been due to return to the United States tomorrow.

MR. LEHRER: The hostage crisis in Nicaragua has ended nearly one week after it began. Former contras on one side, pro-sandinistas on the other, released the last of their respective hostages overnight. We have a report narrated by Louise Bates of Worldwide Television News.

LOUISE BATES, WTN: For the past five days, the drama reminded Nicaraguans that the war between the left and the right really isn't over. In a late night deal former sandinista fighters released the last of their hostages. Among them was Vice President Vajilio Gadoy, unharmed but weary. The leftist gunmen seized Gadoy and others in retaliation for the kidnapping of sandinistas in the North by former contra guerrillas. But rightist Jose Angelle finally agreed to free his hostages. He won a few concessions from Managua after claiming his men were being persecuted by the sandinista-dominated army. President Camoro returned from Mexico as the drama was ended. She welcomed the settlement. She said Nicaraguans realize disputes must be settled through dialogue. When the contra's hostages returned to Managua, the sandinistas celebrated, but the failure of national reconciliation is ever more evident.

MR. LEHRER: The crisis was prompted by division remaining from the civil war in the 1980s between the contras and the sandinista government.

MR. MacNeil: Tropical Storm Emily today became the Atlantic Ocean's first hurricane of the season. The storm developed quickly overnight with winds of 75 miles an hour. Officials at the National Hurricane Center said it was located 415 miles southeast of Bermuda. They said Emily was traveling westward about three miles an hour and would not threaten the East Coast of the United States for at least two days. That ends our summary of the day's top stories. Ahead on the Newshour, indictments in New York, Muslims in America, political change in Nigeria, and a Newsmaker interview from the flood summit. FOCUS - INDICTED

MR. MacNeil: We go first tonight to the surprising decision of federal prosecutors to indict Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman. The blind Egyptian cleric, who was expecting to be deported, was formally charged today with masterminding a campaign of urban terrorism, including the World Trade Center bombing last February. He and 14 co-defendants pleaded innocent. Joining us are two journalists working on the story; Charles Sennott, deputy city editor of the New York Daily News, and Peg Tyre of New York Newsday. You both told us and other journalists have the indictment of the Sheik was a real surprise. Why so?

MR. SENNOTT: Well, I think the word that was coming out of the attorney general's office was that they didn't have enough evidence that although they believe that Sheik Omar's rhetoric was certainly fiery and it may have encouraged some of the terrorists to interpret his teachings in a way that would call for an action such as terrorism, I don't think anyone thought they had enough evidence. And it is a real reversal of what Janet Reno had said the -- her office was planning to do.

MR. MacNeil: Peg Tyre, how did you -- were you surprised by this as well?

MS. TYRE: I was very surprised. It seems the connections between the alleged conspirators and the Sheik are very thin, unless there's some new evidence we don't know about, or there's been some translation of the tapes we haven't seen. I was very surprised indeed.

MR. MacNeil: Have reporters had access to a lot of the tapes?

MS. TYRE: At times.

MR. MacNeil: At times. Because the, the defense was, was complaining today that not enough of the tapes had been released officially to them to help them in their work, that some of them had been leaked by, by the prosecution to the media. Is that the case? I mean, has some of it come out that way? Or has --you can't really say, but --

MS. TYRE: I can't really say who they've been leaked by.

MR. MacNeil: -- the media have had access to some of the tapes.

MS. TYRE: At times.

MR. MacNeil: At times.

MR. SENNOTT: I think there was a development that's interesting which is that some of the defense attorneys feel like one of the co-defendants has turned and that this could also suggest why there's this sudden reversal. If they have someone who is other than the informant they've already brought forward, and we know who that is.

MR. MacNeil: That is the undercover agent who's been disclosed now, and who was wearing the tape recorder on a lot of those occasions.

MR. SENNOTT: Right. Some of the defense attorneys now believe there is a new co-defendant who has turned. Who that would be and exactly what they --

MR. MacNeil: One of the 14, you mean, or somebody not charged with it?

MR. SENNOTT: It could be either one of the fourteen, or it could be someone not yet charged. But they think that there may be some new information that is in addition to the tapes.

MR. MacNeil: Do you have any other explanation? Does another plausible explanation occur to you of why they would suddenly change their mind when it looked up until a few days ago, did it not, that he was going to be deported and might even be given the choice of going to Afghanistan instead of Egypt?

MS. TYRE: I don't know how seriously they are considering Afghanistan. I think that there's a lot of political pressure to do something about the Sheik to make at least a stand against the kind of rhetoric he's preaching. I think that that's -- well, I think there's also a prosecution strategy here and that they don't want to take -- begin the world Trade Center bombing trial and have four fellows on trial, two empty seats, and one fellow who's been severed from the case. It's a very weak platform to argue.

MR. MacNeil: Can the tapes recorded by the informer be so revealing? I've read that they are of very poor quality, a lot of them, not nearly as good as those obtained in traditional wire taps and things like that.

MR. SENNOTT: The quality of tape is an issue, but so is the profile of the informant, himself. And this is where a lot of the defense attorneys say they're going to focus their case, which is to discredit him. He seems to be a very mysterious individual. We know very little about him and the process of discovery, as early as it is, hasn't produced anything very substantial on him either. And I think that the defense will intend to betray him not so much as an informant but as a kind of Asian provocateur who encouraged these devout Muslims along the lines of fighting Jihad and giving them what the defense will claim is a misleading interpretation of Sheik Omar's message. And I think they'll try to say that this was basically a set-up, they were framed.

MR. MacNeil: Which is what his lawyers, at least one of the lawyers was claiming today on the steps of the courthouse, that this was a case of entrapment?

MR. SENNOTT: Right.

MS. TYRE: I think E. Mussalim is going to be a tricky witness. I think he's on the tapes as --

MR. MacNeil: This is the informant.

MS. TYRE: Yeah -- as a very -- he's very aggressive in his role, getting things organized, getting weapons, sweeping the areas for bugs. He -- I met him. When you meet him, he comes across very much as sort of a paramilitary figure who has a lot of things going, running a lot of agendas. He suggested to me in the course of an interview that he had had his children kidnapped from Egypt and brought herewhen he, when he moved here. He suggested to me that he was involved in torture. He showed me home photographs he had, I guess, had taken of what looked like military torture, which he didn't have any details about. But I think he's, he's a kind of person who's going to trip over his own stories and his own agendas that he's running. That would be my guess. He's going to be a tough witness for them.

MR. MacNeil: But to come back to the Sheik for a moment, is there anything that you've been -- that's been suggested to you that they have more than his rhetoric, a lot of which is public rhetoric, in the mosques? And everything of which I've read until now suggests that it's stayed very close to the line but on one side of the line.

MR. SENNOTT: Well, the government --

MR. MacNeil: Away from explicitly ordering people to do things. Is it suggested to you they have anything else?

MR. SENNOTT: I think that is a critical question, but I also think that the government claims that it needed time to interpret the tapes from Arabic into English and that they claimed to have some, some much more specific discussions in which Sheik Omar is discouraging the bombing of the U.N. but encouraging the bombing of the Federal Building in New York. Those, if the government really can produce what it, what it's claiming to have, then that's substantial. I think the other aspect of this is that it was the same thing with Sheik Omar in Egypt, that the rhetoric is intentionally vague, and that the rhetoric is intended to call for Jihad, which is a word in itself that's open to so many interpretations, and that this, you know --

MR. MacNeil: Commonly supposed to be a war.

MR. SENNOTT: A Holy War.

MR. MacNeil: A Holy War.

MR. SENNOTT: Also defined as a struggle, and also defined only as retaliation, so there is a lot of interpretations of the word, but as Peg said, I mean, this is a real prosecution strategy, I think, and taking this as the broad conspiracy so that they're going to link everything together, because none of it individually makes too much sense. And it's very scant evidence. But if you take it collectively, the conspiracy, they think they're going to have more success. I think it's a big gamble, and I think, I think everyone's surprised by the move.

MR. MacNeil: It's also surprising in that connection, isn't it - - at least there's been a lot of comment since yesterday about the piece of law they've chosen to base the charge against him on. Tell us what's unusual about that.

MS. TYRE: Well, sedition seems to be something along the lines of a thought crime. There is no overt act that's required, and the burden -- on the other hand, the burden of proof is quite low. It hasn't been used particularly successfully, hasn't been used much, but when it has been used, I think overwhelmingly people who were charged with it were acquitted. It's a very rare, a very rare charge. It's sort of from left field, which to me suggests at, at first glance that they're sort of reaching.

MR. MacNeil: What does it suggest to you?

MR. SENNOTT: I would agree. The defense attorneys called it that, overreaching, and that this then leaves the government very susceptible to basically showing that. I think from the government point of view, their gamble is if we make this a very broad conspiracy, we're at least going to get those defendants who they feel they have the most on. So, in other words, they're expanding what they're trying to go for, hoping that that will mean they'll at least get those defendants who are -- who they believe have the most solid information against them.

MR. MacNeil: Is it also surprising that El Sayad Nosair was arrested, the man who's been in jail on weapons charges in connection with the Rabbi Kahane killing?

MS. TYRE: I wasn't entirely surprised for two reasons. One is that the informant told me that he had been making a lot of trips to see Nosair, offered to take me on a trip to see Nosair, and then cancelled at the last minute. And so I knew there was a lot of back and forth with Nosair, so when he -- when it became clear who the informant was, it suggested me that the government was looking in that direction. We also knew that they were transcribing every scrap of paper taken out of El Sayad Nosair's house, which they had neglected to do after the shooting and after he was acquitted. I also know from some of the discovery material that they've pulled tapes from Atica, his visits at Atica, so that they could transcribe --

MR. MacNeil: The state prison.

MS. TYRE: Yes. They could transcribe conversations that he had with his visitors. So it wasn't entirely surprising to me. It'll be surprising if they can make it -- well, interesting to see if they can make it stick.

MR. MacNeil: There was a lot of comment at the time. In fact, the judge who sentenced him to this reduced charge or commented at the time that he was very surprised that he was acquitted in the charge of murdering, can you go into that at all?

MR. SENNOTT: On the acquittal?

MR. MacNeil: On the acquittal.

MR. SENNOTT: No. I think it baffles everyone, including people who, who covered the trial. Peg, did you cover that trial?

MS. TYRE: I didn't, but one of our columnists called one of the jurists later and just recently, when Nosair's name came up again in connection with the bombing and said, so why did you acquit Nosair? And she said, we didn't acquit him, I convicted him.

MR. MacNeil: I see. So is this going to be an easy case for the federal government to try?

MR. SENNOTT: No.

MR. MacNeil: Based on the charges and the evidence you believe they have.

MR. SENNOTT: I don't think it's going to be an easy case to try at all. And I also think that they face a strategy that's, that's going to be a defense strategy that'll hurt them, which is they're going to probably have to divide it. The judge today in court talked about how the government is going to have to consider whether or not it is going to be fair to charge this many defendants over such a long period of time, that there's, the problem is that some defendants become tainted by testimony against other defendants. And there are several court rulings that prohibit this. And I think you'll probably end up seeing a split trial, which will ultimately undermine the government's attempts to make this a very broad conspiracy case and end up fragmenting it and separating it out?

MR. MacNeil: Do you have any comment on that?

MS. TYRE: Well, what they have done is interesting in that they've taken what to us is a very new idea, and that is terrorism in the United States. They're having to prosecute a very new kind of crime. And what they have done is they've put it in a traditional organized crime paradigm, so that you have a head, a John Gati, as it were, you have the capos. They really have organized it in that way, which may make it more palatable for a jury to understand that as opposed to having to grasp the issues of religious Jihad or international politics.

MR. MacNeil: Finally, on the security surrounding the scene today suggests that they really were worried that there are other people out there who may still do some violence, is that right?

MR. SENNOTT: Yeah. The security was something that I covered the Rodney King trial in LA, and that, of course, I would say there was a lot more security, but other than that, I can't think of anything, nor could a lot of the veteran court officers think of any time in New York when they've had that kind of security. I think that the stuff that is coming out, the claims for retaliation that are coming out of Egypt now are very serious. I just got back from traveling in Egypt and following where Sheik Omar comes from in upper Egypt, and I think that one of the impressions I came away with was that there is a very large militant following of Sheik Omar, or people who feel that Sheik Omar speaks to them, that Sheik Omar's calls for an Islamic state, that Sheik Omar's calls to the government to say that the Mubarak government is corrupt is very strongly felt, and it's a very real sentiment.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Charles Sennott, Peg Tyre, thank you for joining us.

MS. TYRE: My pleasure. FOCUS - MUSLIMS IN AMERICA

MR. LEHRER: Now, the first of a two-part look at Muslims in America. As we just heard, the arrests in New York have focused attention on a small group of Muslim fundamentalists with clear cut political aims. They come from within a diverse and growing Muslim community. Charles Krause reports.

MR. KRAUSE: Evening at a mosque in the New York suburbs. The call to prayer was just beginning. But the people taking off their shoes haven't come to worship. They were members of the Passaic County Human Relations Commission, and they were here to try to understand a religious faith that's become increasingly important in northern New Jersey. Like most Americans they'd never been in a mosque before.

GUIDE: Actually, the mosque is for all the people.

WOMAN: I know that. But this community though, is it more Arab people than Indian Pakistanis as Teaneck has?

GUIDE: Yes.

OTHER WOMAN: So you have other persons from different religions, it will be accepted?

WOMAN: Different countries.

OTHER WOMAN: Different countries.

MR. KRAUSE: Despite good manners all around, there were some strained moments, as well as confusion, and little wonder. The Islamic Center in Patterson, New Jersey, is located less than 20 miles from Manhattan, in the shadow of the World Trade Center. Yet, for all the growing concern about terrorism and fundamentalism, this meeting also cast a light on something else, the steady growth and growing contribution of Muslims in America. No one's sure exactly how many Muslims are in the country today. Estimates range from 47 million, which would mean there are now more Muslims than there are Episcopalians, although most Americans probably think of most Muslims as being from the Middle East, in America stereotypes often don't apply. They're black, white, Asian, and Arab. They're converts and new immigrants. They're also families that have been here for generations. There are probably more new mosques in the country today than there are new churches, some 1500 so far, fully half of them open since 1980. Unlike earlier generations, today Muslims don't necessarily want to be homogenized into the great American melting pot. Instead, many of them now believe it's more important to retain their religious and cultural identity. As a result, the past decade has been a time for institution building, Muslim information networks, new channels of communication, heightened visibility, in short, increasing Muslim self awareness. A recent Washington demonstration in support of Muslims in Bosnia was a milestone. For the first time, Muslims from different national and ethnic backgrounds joined together in this country to press their own political agenda. There they were, Muslims originally from Turkey, from Pakistan, from Egypt, from Jordan, Palestinians, Saudis, Arabians, and American-born Muslims exercising their democratic rights, with nothing to unite them but their faith. Some say it's a paradox, Muslims from countries that have long been antagonistic finding unity in diaspora. Others say only in America.

NOREEN KAZI: This is the first valley that all Muslims from different places were there and they were united for one --

MR. KRAUSE: Long Island teenagers Noreen Kazi and Sadaf Tatari were still excited by what they experienced weeks after the demonstration. As a result, both chose to be interviewed wearing traditional scarves called Kijavs.

NOREEN KAZI: It was human for human.

SADAF TATARI: It was beautiful.

NOREEN KAZI: Going in a bus, and every car we passed, the young kids, they made signs like, you know, every person we passed --

SADAF TATARI: Everyone was so in it.

NOREEN KAZI: Everyone on the road we passed, it felt like we were in Saudi Arabia and doing Haj. That's how it felt.

MR. KRAUSE: So Muslims in America can feel pride in their religion and in their growing numbers. Issues like Bosnia can unite them, but at the same time, many also feel a growing sense of unease. They worry that as Muslims become more visible, non-Muslim Americans won't understand their diversity, lumping them altogether like so many slices of pita bread. They also worry that Islams' different costumes, laws, and traditions, and especially growing Islamic nationalism in the Middle East will inevitably clash with western interests and western values. Most of all, Muslims in this country worry that when other Americans hear the word Muslim they'll think terrorist or fundamentalist. It's a fear that comes up again and again whenever Muslims gather.

SALAH OBEIDALLAH, Islamic Center President: What I'm concerned here is that when a radical element of our community makes a mistake or does an act that is deplorable, the entire community should not be painted with the same colors as the guilty party.

MR. KRAUSE: Salah Obeidallah is a Palestinian who came to the United States 19 years ago. He got a college degree and wound up a business executive. He even married a woman who was Jewish. But his success and upward mobility haven't stilled his faint sense of living in an enemy camp.

SALAH OBEIDALLAH: You sense sometimes from talking to some Americans that even though they may joke with you and all of that, they might be, you know, you're always cognizant of the fact that they might be thinking, hey, you know, this guy might be involved, or this guy might be -- so the issue of trust becomes -- gets minimized a little bit. And you don't know exactly what, what to say to them to assure them or to reassure them that you had no involvement.

MR. KRAUSE: Obeidallah is president of the Islamic Center in Patterson and was instrumental in bringing the Human Rights Commission to visit. It was his hope that Muslims and non-Muslims could begin to sort out the thicket of misunderstanding that divides them. Joan Waks is a lawyer who chairs the Commission. Like many non-Muslims, she came to the mosque believing the vast majority of Muslims in the United States aren't terrorists. Yet, also, like many non-Muslims, that belief didn't quite calm her fears. Is it your impression that these people that you've met and dealt with bring with them though the baggage, the politics of the countries where they come from?

JOAN WAKS, County Human Relations Commission: If they do, it's not evident. I think probably they would not want us to believe that they bring that baggage with them. Whether they do or not, I couldn't say. I sense that there may be some of that so-called baggage.

MR. KRAUSE: The fears of both sides may be somewhat exaggerated, but they grow out of real events. Salah Obeidallah would like to believe that most Americans aren't prejudiced against Muslims. But two years ago, when his mosque wanted to construct the new building in Clifton, New Jersey, the mosque couldn't get a zoning variance. Even some local government officials acknowledge the incident had anti-Muslim overtones. More recently, Obeidallah wrote to a local Jewish newspaper to protest a cartoon which showed a terrorist buying a package tour of the United States. But Obeidallah also knows that not all the fear is grounded in prejudice, that Americans are genuinely worried about terrorism. Today's arraignment of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman capped a series of shocking events that begin with the bombing of the World Trade Center, but not all of the incidents have been as well publicized. Last April, the FBI indicted four Palestinians in the Midwest, accusing them of being members of the Abu Nidal terrorist network. Meanwhile, in Israel, authorities arrested two Palestinians with U.S. citizenship on the West Bank, the charge, distributing money raised in the United States to support Hamas, a radical Muslim movement which the State Department labels "terrorist." According to many experts, these incidents strongly suggest a pattern, that terrorist groups and foreign intelligence services have begun to use the community in this country to raise money and to operate in the United States. Most Muslims insist the extremists are a tiny minority, and most outside experts who study the Muslim community tend to agree. But they also say the relationship between the community here and Islamic fundamentalists outside the United States is extremely complex. There's no better example of this complex relationship than Sheik Ikromasid Sabri's recent visit to Patterson, New Jersey, where he met with local Palestinians. Sabri is one of Jerusalem's most important religious leaders and his mosque, Al Axa, has become a symbol of Palestinian resistance, especially since a violent clash between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police near the mosque in 1990. Seventeen Palestinians were killed in the fighting. The origins of the riot are still in dispute. But a few months before the bloody demonstration, Sheik Sabri told a Canadian magazine world opinion will understand when we Palestinians are forced to take up arms. And now, here he was in New Jersey, just three years later, accusing the Israelis of harsh and illegal treatment of Palestinian prisoners. The speech took place no more than a mile from the mosque which the Passaic County Human Relations Commission visited just a few weeks earlier, trying to reduce tension. To be sure, it isn't illegal to make a speech. Still, different observers interpret the purpose and impact of visits by religious leaders like Sheik Sabri differently. Walid Rabah, editor of a local Arabic language newspaper in Patterson, says there was nothing sinister about the Sheik's visit.

MR. KRAUSE: There must have been at least fifty or seventy-five Palestinians who came to hear the Sheik last night. Why did they come?

WALID RABAH, Editor, Arab Voice: They want to know the news of intifada there, because they have their relatives there. They have their neighbor; they have their relationship between them; and those people who are living there, so they want to know the news, what's the news of their relatives, what's the news of their neighbors, what's the news of their country.

MR. KRAUSE: But in Washington, Yossef Bodansky sees these visits differently. He is an Israeli emigre, currently on the staff of the House Republican Task Force on Terrorism. He's also written a book, citing evidence that religious leaders from the Middle East often look to Iran for guidance and support. In some cases, Bodansky says these radical clerics are then sent by Iran to the United States.

YOSSEF BODANSKY, Terrorism Expert: The flow of educators, religious leaders, social workers, et cetera, coming from the Near East with very specific instructions to manipulate the community, radicalize it, and condition it to, into supporting acts of terrorism.

MR. KRAUSE: What would motivate a legitimate immigrant to this country to join?

YOSSEF BODANSKY: To cross the line?

MR. KRAUSE: Yes.

YOSSEF BODANSKY: Well, the question is not -- you see, my understanding when the individual comes off the plane, he is an immigrant, I mean, committed to better life. He may run into several problems, absorption, advancement, whatever, but that usually did not propel people into blowing up buildings. It is the manipulation. Once his frustration, which is genuine and deep, is emerging, once he begins, he or she begins to seek solace and refuge within the religious, if you want, community, or even extremist Islam, then that individual becomes susceptible to manipulation and ultimately recruitment.

MR. KRAUSE: According to Bodansky, probably no more than 1 percent of this country's Muslims are open to the fundamentalist teachings of religious leaders like Sheik Sabri and Sheik Rahman. But still, 1 percent translates into forty to fifty thousand potential collaborators.

YOSSEF BODANSKY: The community of Muslims in the United States provide the expert terrorists with their support system, the sustaining system. And on average, for any terrorist operation you need twenty to thirty households here. You cannot enflame them from overseas. They have to be here. They have to come on their own. They have to establish the communal activity on their own. Of course, it is imperative for the sponsoring state to penetrate, manipulate, subvert that community so that it serves the interest. But the community ought to be here in the first place.

MR. KRAUSE: According to Bodansky and others, it was no accident that Sheik Rahman chose Jersey City to set up his mosque. It's a tough urban area, filled with recent immigrants from Egypt, Pakistan, and the West Bank, the kind of place that breeds alienation. It can also be disorienting, especially for young men raised in traditional societies. Bodansky says it's just the kind of place where disappointment turns to bitterness against the United States.

REP. ROBERT TORRICELLI, (D) New Jersey: You're talking about an extraordinary small number of people in what is a large and growing community both in the country and here in New Jersey.

MR. KRAUSE: Democratic Congressman Robert Torricelli represents Jersey City in Washington.

REP. ROBERT TORRICELLI: I see a rejection or abhorrence at these terrorist acts among the doctors and the lawyers and the engineers who have come here from Pakistan and Indonesia and Egypt. The Islamic community isn't any different than the rest of us. Unfortunately, these perceptions have now been settled that this terrorist few represent the many.

MR. KRAUSE: And you're sure that isn't the case?

REP. ROBERT TORRICELLI: I know it's not the case, but it worries me. It worries me that children who live in this community in Jersey City, who believe in Islam as a loving and a peaceful faith, are going by the rest of the community to be identified with the terrorist few. Not only is that unfair, but it can radicalize people. It can do the bidding of the terrorist, themselves.

MR. KRAUSE: If Yossef Bodansky and law enforcement officials are right, the twin issues of Muslim fundamentalism and terrorism will be with this country for years to come. They'll be debated nationally and dealt with internationally. Meanwhile, Muslims and non-Muslims in America will have to try to learn to live together. It won't be easy.

SPOKESPERSON: American women are striving for equality. Let me ask you this.

MR. KRAUSE: Listen to what happened when Obeidallah tried to explain the complex and controversial role of women in the Islamic faith.

MR. OBEIDALLAH: God has considered the man to be a step yet -- not better -- you see, there is a difference between -- He does not consider the woman -- the man better than woman by 1 degree, but put, put the man in a position of leadership. That does not make him better, because as far, as far as her prayer, she is mandated to do the same prayers as we do. You take what Islam has given the woman 1400 years ago versus what others had it would have been considered by any standard revolutionary.

COMMISSION SPOKESPERSON: I think the problem is that your terminology "given the woman," you know -- did man have to be given --

MR. OBEIDALLAH: Adam was first. She was second.

COMMISSION SPOKESPERSON: Now wait a minute. (outcry from other women in group)

JOAN WAKS: I learned a lot personally. I think we all did. I think that's what our Commission is really all about. So when we went to the mosque, we saw the men in their traditional caftans and had discussions, and could joke a little bit about, you know, the differences. I began to admire these people, which is not to say that we don't have differences. We clearly have differences, but I think if we can reach out to people in that way, it'll benefit all of us.

MR. KRAUSE: After a decade of almost invisible but extraordinary growth, the Muslim community in the United States is beginning to surface. Some Americans, like Passaic County Human Relations Commission, will reach out to try to understand the similarities and attempt to bridge the differences. Other Americans, even Muslim-Americans, may be forced to confront Islamic fundamentalists in ways no one could have predicted even a year ago. But one thing is for sure. Muslims in America are no longer invisible. And they can no longer be ignored.

MR. LEHRER: Tomorrow night, in Part 2, Charles Krause looks at the Americanization of the Muslim community. And still to come on the Newshour tonight, a report from Nigeria, and Sec. Cisneros at the flood summit. FOCUS - BROKEN PROMISE?

MR. MacNeil: Next, the troubles in Nigeria, the most populous African nation south of the Sahara and the tenth largest in the world. With all its oil, the former British colony should also be one of the more prosperous, but, instead, Nigeria has been mired in a combination of economic stagnation, corruption, and military rule. Today, the country's military leader officially transferred power to an interim civilian government, but the transfer may be more apparent than real. We have a report from Judy Aslett of Independent Television News.

MS. ASLETT: It's a parade Nigerians have been waiting for for the past eight years. Gen. Babangada bidding farewell to the military and giving the impression at least of handing over to civilian rule. But as police beat back the crowd which gathered to see the Babangada go, it became clear the government replacing him falls far short of real democracy. The new president, Ernest Shanikan, is already considered to be Babangada's pocket. The same hand, said one observer, in a different glove. In an even more blatant move, Babangada has given five posts of the new cabinet to senior military officers, leaving people wondering if anything has actually changed.

MAN ON STREET: We don't believe that this interim government is democracy. It is not democracy.

SECOND MAN ON STREET: What we are looking for, a permanent government. That's what I'm saying.

MS. ASLETT: On the streets of Lagos, the protest against the interim government continued with a second day of strikes. Civil rights groups now say they'll be stepping up their action, and for the first time, they're supporting the use of violence.

OLISA AGBAKOBA, Civil Liberties Organization: I think that there's a living danger in the sense that Babangada, although he's retired today from the army, he has obviously put his people in place, therefore, as far as we're concerned, there's still a battle, as it were -- I'm sorry to use the word battle to be fought -- and that battle will be around the un-democratic forces and the democratic forces. It may well lead to a rough time. It may well lead to violence. I think that's the price we pay for democracy. I think we have to pay it.

MS. ASLETT: There are more than 250 separate tribes in Nigeria, and everyone is aware of the potential for violence. The man the civil rights groups say should be installed as president is Chief Moshud Abiola, seen here receiving an award from the American Chamber of Commerce. He effectively won the election here in June, i.e., until Gen. Babangada had the results annulled. That led immediately to some of the most violent demonstrations Nigeria has seen since the civil war. Thousands of Abiola's supporters took to the streets of Lagos, demanding that Babangada step down. The police and the army responded with force. More than 100 people died countrywide, and many more were injured. At the same time the government cracked down on the press. These journalists are meeting in secret. All of them have had their papers closed, and they're now on the run from the police.

LADI LAWAL, Chairman, Lagos Nigeria Union of Journalists: We finally had to believe that it is happening in our own country. You know, people coming, security men coming to harass members of the press, seize copies of magazines, stop them from publishing, stop people from express their views, and putting fear into, into everybody.

MS. ASLETT: In Nigeria's new capital of Uzia which is still only half built, the protests from the people are having a limited impact. In the House of Representatives, even members of Abiola's own party, the Social Democrats, appear to be backing down. The feeling is that many of them have been bought off by Babangada. The government denies that any money has changed hands. But either way, the opposition is divided enough for Babangada to justify imposing his own civilian government on the country. In order to break the politic logjam, the new government needs to find legitimacy with the International Community. After 10 years of military rule, which has been characterized by corruption and financial mismanagement, the government is in debt to the tune of 20 billion pounds. Despite being one of the world's biggest oil producers, petrol is scarce, and yesterday the price went up tenfold. The feeling that the military has been stealing from the people is overwhelming. If the new government is also seen as corrupt, it's unlikely that those who've been laboring under military rule will get the help they need from the West. What western donors were looking for today was for the military to completely separate itself from the government. Analysts now say it's unlikely Babangada has gone far enough to convince them Nigeria is in civilian hands.

PROFESSOR ADEBAYO OLUKUSHI, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs: And we're likely to see the sustainance of pressure, particularly amongst the G-7 countries on the Nigerian government to try to return the country to democratically elected system of governance.

MS. ASLETT: If the West does reject the new interim government, Nigerians could be facing their most difficult time since independence. Their only hope is that the threat of violence is contained. NEWSMAKER

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, the flood summit in Des Moines, Iowa. The floodwaters are receding in the Midwest, but the losses are not. Federal officials listened today as state and local leaders in the nine states in the Upper Mississippi Valley talked about the still pressing needs in their respective communities. Henry Cisneros, the Secretary of Housing & Urban Development, is presiding over this two-day flood summit. And he joins us now from Des Moines. Mr. Secretary, welcome.

SEC. CISNEROS: Jim, how are you doing?

MR. LEHRER: I'm doing fine. What's the purpose of the summit, Mr. Secretary?

SEC. CISNEROS: The purpose is very straightforward. It is to try to get people into homes, either back into their homes or into some alternate housing. But the very straightforward purpose of today was to get all of the actors, state, community development, and housing directors, and city and county, community development people, private providers, non-profit groups, Red Cross, Salvation Army, federal officials, and talk about how we collaborate, how we pass off the baton, one to the other, and make sure that as many of the 45,000 people who are outside of their homes can be gotten into their homes.

MR. LEHRER: Is it 45,000 people who need homes, or is it 45,000 homes that are needed?

SEC. CISNEROS: Well, actually I think it's 45,000 units. And we heard today that it might be 55,000 when the damage estimates are finally in.

MR. LEHRER: Now, are these homes that need to be completely replaced, or they need to be moved, they need to be repaired? Explain the figures.

SEC. CISNEROS: It's a mixture. Sounds like roughly thirty to thirty-five percent probably are completely destroyed, and the remainder are damaged in some degree. Those that are completely destroyed are homes that have been under water, homes that require being moved because they're in a flood plain and the likelihood is that they're going to be flooded again, so it doesn't make sense to build 'em again in that area. Those are the kind of challenges.

MR. LEHRER: Now, speaking of that issue, does the federal government have a policy on that? I mean, are you going to fund the rebuilding of housing in flood plains or in areas that are particularly susceptible to flooding?

SEC. CISNEROS: The federal flood insurance program does have a policy that would discourage building back in those areas that have been flooded within flood plains. Others of us in the federal government don't have clear policy, but we do work with local officials who are making local policy, and that's really as it should be. They know the local circumstances. They know where the flood plain lines are, and they know what local preferences are. But the hope is that we don't rebuild in areas where the likelihood is that we're going to have to be back in a few years and bail people out because of the building that's occurring.

MR. LEHRER: But as a practical matter, you're going to -- the federal government's going to stay out of that sort of thing deciding this city --

SEC. CISNEROS: No.

MR. LEHRER: -- the City of Quincy, Illinois, you can build new houses here, but you can't there, Hannibal, Missouri, you can do it here, St. Genevieve -- you're not going to do that?

SEC. CISNEROS: For homes that are insured under the federal flood insurance program, the federal government will have a direct say. Otherwise, we fund local communities, and they have to make some of these decisions.

MR. LEHRER: Now one of the things that the states, in particular, have said, that they want the 25 percent requirement waived, which means that, that for federal dollars they get, they have to match 25 percent before they get the 75 percent from the federal government. Are you prepared to do that?

SEC. CISNEROS: Jim, let me explain it, because it's a little complicated. Today's conference was about housing. And on everything related to housing, that issue is not relevant. Already, we have waived all of the matches required to get housing built, the community development block grant program, the home program, Farmers Home, FHA, VA, none of them are affected by the match. There is one outstanding match issue left, and it is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA. What they have is a program called Public Facilities. And at the present time, it requires a match until it is waived. And that waiver can only can be triggered when the loss estimates reach a certain level per capita in the state, and we're not at that level yet. James Lee Witt, the administrator of FEMA, is going to meet with the Office of Management & Budget and make a recommendation to the president I would say literally within the next few days. And when he does, the waiver question will then be addressed.

MR. LEHRER: The public --

SEC. CISNEROS: But it relates to this subject of public facilities, not to housing.

MR. LEHRER: Define public facilities.

SEC. CISNEROS: Public facilities means general purpose government facilities and the support -- to cite an overused word -- the infrastructure of community development, roads, bridges, sewers, water lines, even public spaces along waterfronts, one might even say streets and downtown sidewalks in affected areas. Those are all public facilities.

MR. LEHRER: Is the inclination of the government now to waive that?

SEC. CISNEROS: Well, I would say that the inclination is to waive it, assuming that we can live within the law. And I don't want to get into it, because it's complicated technically, but essentially what has to happen is you have to reach $64 per person, per capita of damage in an entire state, and that number isn't reached yet. I mean, even citing the magnitude of loss in this flood, it is along the counties, along the river in Illinois, for example, not the entire state of Illinois. And the way the law is written, you have to get up to a per capita level. So those are the technical issues that are at play here that make it a little bit harder than it was in Florida, where the, where it was very, very obviousearly on that the waiver needed to be granted. Furthermore, where the Florida hurricane came through in one day and at the end of that day you could say this is the amount of damage that we have, this has been months in building. And so the estimates are just not as clear. But I expect, I expect that this issue will come to a head within a matter of days. I think that James Lee Witt, administrator of FEMA, is going to be at the Office of Management & Budget discussing this very subject tomorrow, so we're, we're getting there. But, again, let me state, today we distributed $125 million actually handed to the governors and to the state leaders and to the county officials, city officials, $125 million worth of home and CDBG, Community Development Block Grant housing money. And that's about half of the total HUD allocation. We didn't want to wait on a formula, our own formula. We basically came with a down payment or a start on the money that they would need, and we were able to make that distribution today. So a lot, a lot is going forward, despite the controversy associated with this waiver question.

MR. LEHRER: Well, on the, on the matters that are going forward, explain to me now the $125 million today, you put it in the context of the 55,000 anticipated housing units that are going to be needed. How much money is -- how much of that is going to be taken care of by what you have available now?

SEC. CISNEROS: Well, it's hard to know in terms of numbers of units of housing, because it's going to be up to the communities to decide just exactly how they handle it. But what we did, for example, was take the total sum of money available to money is $250 million -- that's what we were appropriated in this congressional appropriation of 5 billion for housing. And what we did was we said, well, we can't calculate what the formula would give every community but we know that if we started with half the amount, we're safe in not overcompensating anyone, so let's go ahead and give them that much. And when the formula's complete, we'll give the rest of the 250. Now what these communities then will do is they'll get to work. And they'll begin focusing on whether people need rental assistance or money for reconstruction or rehabilitation or whether they're going to buy out some people who are presently in flood plains, or how they're going to go about it.

MR. LEHRER: So you didn't say you have to spend it in a certain way. All they have to do is spend it on housing needs, is that right?

SEC. CISNEROS: That's correct. That's correct.

MR. LEHRER: Well, how did you decide how much goes to each of the nine states?

SEC. CISNEROS: We used formula based on the estimates we have to date of need, a very simple formula, estimates of damaged or destroyed housing in distressed counties throughout the nine states. And that's a -- that's a first cut.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Are you able to say now, and were you able to say to the folks at the summit that when this is all said and done, whatever the needs are, whether it's 45,000 housing units or 55,000 housing units, the federal government is going to make sure that those units are, in fact, in place when this is all done?

SEC. CISNEROS: Jim, I would agree with every word in your sentence, but the federal government.

MR. LEHRER: Okay.

SEC. CISNEROS: Because I think it's going to take partnership with state governments and local governments and some of their resources, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army have been tremendous in what they have done, and they are getting corporate contributions. So I think between us all, I think we can agree with every word in your sentence. We are going to make sure that people get into homes, if not their own, original homes, then into alternate housing.

MR. LEHRER: But real, real homes, right, not temporary?

SEC. CISNEROS: That's right.

MR. LEHRER: You're talking about real homes.

SEC. CISNEROS: Not church basements, not shelters.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

SEC. CISNEROS: Not living with relatives, but into their homes. We are committed, HUD, Agriculture, Sec. Espy, FEMA, SBA, all of us, to staying as long as is necessary in an emergency mode until we get people housed. This is exceedingly serious. People are --

MR. LEHRER: We hear you.

SEC. CISNEROS: -- at their wits end, near desperation, and we're committed to trying to get 'em into homes.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Sec. Cisneros, thank you very much for being with us tonight.

SEC. CISNEROS: Thank you, Jim. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the major stories of this Thursday, radical Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman and 14 of his followers pleaded innocent to terrorism charges. They're accused of the World Trade Center bombing and plotting similar attacks. In Egypt, followers of the Sheik threatened to strike back at U.S. targets. This evening, NASA scientists said they suspect failed transistors may have caused the loss of contact with the Mars Observer. They called it a "non-recoverable situation" that would doom the billion dollar mission. Also this evening, the United Nations decided to lift oil and economic sanctions against Haiti. It did so one day after Haiti fulfilled a key condition for the restoration of democracy to the country. U.S. Amb. Madeleine Albright said the official vote will come tomorrow. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.