WASHINGTON, Jan 27: FBI Director Robert Mueller has ordered the agency’s 56 field offices to develop a demographic profile of their localities, which would include counting the mosques in their areas.

These profiles are being used, along with other factors, to set specific numerical goals for counter terrorism investigations and secret national-security wiretaps in each region, reports Newsweek in its upcoming Feb 3 issue.

When FBI executive assistant director Wilson Lowery Jr. briefed congressional staffers on the project last week, and explained that mosque tallies would be used to help set investigative goals, “there were a lot of eyebrows that went up,” says the report.

The approach raised concerns that the FBI was engaging in a new form of religious “profiling.”

“It’s frightening to hear that this is actual policy,” said Mr Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “This just shows how they are viewing every Islamic community in the country with suspicion.”

Mueller and his top deputies have been touring field offices and telling agents that they need to focus more on terrorism cases, including developing undercover informants, putting aside less important cases such as drug and relatively minor white-collar fraud cases.

“They don’t want to hear whether we’ve got a great bank-robbery programme going,” says Newsweek, quoting a top FBI agent.