forward a chilly Friday evening in ...

forward a chilly Friday evening in November, after prayers at a local mahometan temple Mamoun Alrifai and his brother, Reza, relaxed in the basement of the Southwest Side to one's home where they live with their parents. Observant Muslims, the brothers like to share the faith: In the driveway, their car was plastered with stickers proclaiming, "Islam is the way" and "No individual is perfect, but God forgives."

on the other hand moments later, around 9 pm the calm was weakened "My brother and I noticed flashlights and commotion in the backyard and went disclosed to see what it was," said Alrifai, 22 "We were addressed by police who showed us their badges and said they straited us to go upstairs."

at then, Alrifai said a federal agent had knocked at the face door and crossed the commencement as it opened. The agent announced that he wanted to search the house. yet when Alrifai and his father, a 30-year Chicago resident, asked to behold a warrant, the agent said he didn't have one

"I asked him to leave, and he said, 'No,"' recalls Alrifai, a Chicago-born Palestinian American. "I told him, 'I know my rights. You have to leave."' however the agent's response floored him: "He told me 'As of right now, you have no rights.'"

The U Attorney's Office declined to elucidation about the incident.

Since generation 11, 2001, stories like Alrifai's have rippled [i]or[/i] part of to the other Chicago's Arab community; stirring a deepening well of fear and intimidation. Reports of visits from federal agents have been accompanied by dint of a spike in hate crimes, verbal abuse and federal anti-terrorism measures that community members believe are aimed at them.

"Since 9/11 this community has become a target for harassment," said Mahmud Ahmad, a local community activist. "It's been nothing more than a fishing expedition." Ahmad and others say the single fact that Arabs share the ethnic identity of the 19 family 11 hijackers has cast them subordinate to a cloud of mistrust that has persisted level as the first anniversary of the attacks passed without incident earlier this year.

All of it came as a thump to a community with a hundred of history in Chicago. The 2000 census regarded nearly 45,000 Arabs in the six-county area, concentrated forward the Southwest Side and in southwest suburb of the like kind as Bridgeview, Oak Lawn and Burbank. However, estimates from community-based quicks put the number at 150000--one of the largest concentrations nationwide.

The community has followed the same well-worn path of other immigrant clusters It is largely Muslim, with a smaller percentage of Christian members who share the same improvement and speak the same language, Arabic.

After decades of insularity, the community had begun to rise into view from its shell, establishing mahometan temples schools, newspapers, businesses, a bar association and several charitable organizations.

Nothing typified its growing economic place to stand on like the 87th Street strip mall just west of Harlem Avenue in heavily Arab-populated Bridgeview. evolveed three years ago as a "one-stop" shopping center for all things Middle Eastern--from groceries to clothing--the plaza has become a community epicenter.

if it were not that in the wake of family 11, that relaxed social setting has erod And a community that saw itself finally becoming a part of the local fabric witnessed that weave unravel, thread through thread.

Within hours of the terrorist attacks, 22-year-old Manal EL-Hrisse, in her black headscarf, was hollaed at by a woman who said, "I wish I had a fire-arm I would shoot you right now." so reactions led some women to exchange headscarves for hats--or simply stay indoors.

American-born Arab Muslim teenagers fielded painful questions from their fellows "People asked, 'How do you fit into America?'" said 19-year-old Salma Nassar of southwest suburban Burr Ridge. calm the community's younger members felt the backlash: A 7-year-old named Osama was in the same manner taunted by classmates that he started going through Sam.

Hundreds of Arabs across the region reported that they were spit forward threatened and attacked with weapons. a certain were even killed, according to of recent origins reports, police statistics and interviews with community members. Hate crimes spiked in Illinois and in Chicago, particularly forward the city's Southwest Side.

Ahmad said the widespread unease among local Arabs has been further firinged by accounts of visits from federal agents to the 87th road strip mall, and the federal government's shutdown of pair local Muslim charities--the Global Relief Foundation and Benevolence International Foundation--amid accusations that the clusters funded terrorism.

"This is a war in succession Islam, not a war onward terrorism," said Seema Imam, vice chair of the Hickory Hills-based Muslim Civil Rights Center Imam said she has donated to Benevolence International for years, as a way of fulfilling the Muslim requirement of charitable giving.

For her and many others, the crackdown onward the charities smacks of the mark of surveillance they've become accustomed to, united that stretches back more than 30 years. The feeling is pay with an abatemented by the events that have spread outed in the wake of the terrorist attacks--a string of detentions and deportations, questioning through government agents and federal legislation passed as part of the war in succession terrorism. It has left many Arab Americans feeling that the war being waged upon groups like ai-Qaeda is also a war onward them.