WASHINGTON, July 19: Muslim community leaders have told the FBI that many Muslims are afraid of visiting mosques because they fear they may be branded as terrorists.

More than 75 Muslim leaders - most of them from Pakistan - met senior FBI officials during the weekend to share their concerns about an FBI-led campaign against terrorism.

During the campaign, which began last week, the FBI plans to interview hundreds of community leaders and ordinary Muslims, seeking their help in the fight against terrorism.

The interviews have panicked the already nervous Muslim and Arab communities in the United States. US Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and the Department of Homeland Security recently issued warnings regarding a possible large-scale Al Qaeda attack in the United States during the election.

Dr Suhail Muzaffar, chairman of the Majlis mosque in Concord, New York, told reporters after a meeting with senior FBI officials that people are afraid of visiting mosques and sending money to charities in the Muslim world.

But a senior FBI official, Pasquale J. D'Amuro, assured the Muslim community that the agency also wants to protect their rights as American citizens. "We are only asking for their help in the war on terror to work with the FBI in trying to identify any element or activity that they may also consider suspicious," he said.

Since 9/11, he said, there have been a lot of concerns in the Muslim community about their safety and their civil rights and "we want them to know the FBI investigates that also."

In a statement issued in Washington on Monday, the National Council of Pakistani Americans welcomed the FBI's effort to take the Muslim community into confidence about its campaign against terrorism.

"Dialogue is necessary, especially in a democratic society. The war against terrorism cannot be won without winning the minds and hearts of the Muslim community," the statement said.

During one of the meetings, an FBI official used the term "Sunni extremists" while talking about a particular group of militants attacking US troops in Iraq. The term hurt some Muslim leaders who alerted him of the sensitivity of the Muslim community to such terms.

They reminded FBI officials that the Sunni was the largest denomination of Islam and using such terms equals to linking about a billion Sunnis to extremism. Dr Abdul Rehman, who also attended the meeting, said this shows why it was important for the FBI to interact with the community. "Both groups can learn from each other and also can learn to avoid what's hurtful and unnecessary," he said.