Yesterday, the NY Times published a 2006 e-mail that Times Square terror suspect Faisal Shahzad sent to friends, wondering if "peaceful protest" to the apparent persecution of Muslims was appropriate, "Can you tell me a way to save the oppressed? And a way to fight back when rockets are fired at us and Muslim blood flows?"
The e-mail was given to the police by Dr. M. Saud Anwar, a Connecticut pulmonologist who founded Pakistani American Association of Connecticut to battle stereotyping of Pakistani Americans as terrorists, a common worry (a Long Island Pakistani man was upset the FBI questioned him about Shahzad, whom he says he didn't know). Anwar received the e-mail from a friend of Shahzad and has "acting as liaison between the authorities and [the friend] who feared talking to them."
Anwar told a group of fellow Pakistani-Americans and law enforcement officials that they needed to be aware, "This is not, God forbid, to spy on people, but just to live your life the way it is and if you notice something that concerns you, speak up. This is someone who lived among us and under the radar without anybody in the community knowing he was radicalized."
Shahzad lived in Connecticut after coming to the U.S. for his college studies. Avon, CT police chief Mark Rinaldo, who has been working with PAACT, told the Times, "It seems to be one individual, yet a whole community is suffering for the crime."
