NEW YORK, Dec 15: FBI agents raided the offices of two of the US Muslim charities on Friday in what US officials described as a broadening of the government’s campaign to shut a financial pipeline to terrorist groups overseas.

In a report on Saturday, the New York Times said the government had announced few details about the raids on the Global Relief Foundation and the Benevolence International Foundation, both of Illinois, and refused to say what terrorist groups might be linked to them. The Federal Bureau of Investigation would not say what information it seized.

Last week, federal law enforcement agents froze the assets and searched the office of another large Muslim charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, in Richardson. In that case, the government accused the foundation of supporting Hamas.

The newspaper said that the Global Relief and Benevolence International had repeatedly denied links to terrorism. They had insisted that millions of dollars in contributions that they received annually were used for vital development and emergency- aid projects around the world, focused on nations with large Muslim populations.

The treasury department said after the raids that it had frozen the assets of Global Relief, in Bridgeview, a Chicago suburb. A spokesman for the department, Tony Fratto, said in Washington: “There was coordinated action to block the assets, because this group is suspected of funding terrorist activities.”

The paper when asked what terrorist groups might have received money from Global Relief, Mr Fratto would not answer directly, saying, “this extraordinary action was taken because it’s relevant to the health and safety of American public.”

A lawyer for Global Relief, Roger Simmons, told the Times that FBI and the treasury department personnel had searched the charity’s offices as well as the house of its executive director, but they refused to describe the reasons for the search.

He said freezing the assets would affect $500,000 in donations in the US and $100,000 in Pakistan.