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Raid on Campus at Tampa Puts G-Men on Terror Trail.
NEW YORK -- The raid this week by federal agents on the nest of Islamic radicalism at the University of South Florida may turn up the evidence G-men need to expand their assault on the bases of Islamic terrorism in America.
That, at least, is what partisans of an aggressive stance toward Islamic extremism are hoping in the wake of the assault, which began Monday and has seen FBI agents descend on the campus and the Tampa home of Sami al-Arian, an Islamic militant and associate professor of engineering at the college. The raid came in the aftermath of the disclosure that the new head of the Islamic Jihad, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, had been an adjunct professor of Middle East studies at the university.
The computer files, bank statements, faxes, internal records and audio- and videotapes seized by federal authorities may help them untangle the Islamic Jihad's web of support, which is thought to extend from the Middle East into the heartland of America. The confiscated items may also shed new light on the ties connecting the university, a local Islamic think tank whose offices were also raided by the FBI, and the Islamic Committee for Palestine, an umbrella organization committed to the creation of an Islamic state in Israel. Under a cooperative agreement terminated only last summer, the University of...