STARKVILLE — Starkville’s Islamic Center of Mississippi is closed.
Columbus attorney Dennis Harmon, who represents Oda Dakhlalla’s family, says the mosque on Herbert Street is closed “until the furor passes over.”
Oda Dakhlalla, who is a well-known fixture in the community, is the mosque’s imam.
Dakhlalla’s 22-year-old son, Muhammad, and Jaelyn Young, 20, both Starkville residents, were arrested and charged with conspiring and attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State, a group designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government.
Harmon said the decision to close the house of worship indefinitely was one made “to avoid confrontations” as the community processes Saturday’s arrests and the subsequent federal court hearings in Oxford.
It is not known if ICM attendees have other formal places to worship in the Golden Triangle, and Harmon was unable to provide a count of how many worshipers are effected by the mosque’s closure.
“I haven’t heard of any confrontations — no nasty phone calls or anything so far,” he said.
Starkville Police Chief Frank Nichols says his organization stepped up patrols in the Herbert Street area following Saturday’s incident out of caution for ICM members and the mosque itself.
“We have units intersecting there all day,” he said. “We’re concerned about the safety of all our residents. I’m not worried about what anyone there might do, but you’re talking about 20,000 people coming to town in the last few weeks. You never know what kind of mindset some of these people might have.”
No incidents in the area have been reported, Nichols said.
This is not the first time local law enforcement agents have increased their presence at the mosque.
During the attacks on 9/11, SPD dispatched patrol units to the National Guard armory at Highway 12 and to the mosque. They remained on scene for an extended amount of time, Oktibbeha County Chief Deputy Chadd Garnett said.
Garnett worked with SPD before moving to the Oktibbeha County Sheriff’s Department in 2012.
“Nobody knew what was happening that day as it all unfolded, but we realized both of those locations needed to be protected for differing safety reasons,” he said.
Hainsey: Small-town airports are safe
Airport Executive Director Mike Hainsey, the executive director of Golden Triangle Regional Airport, where Muhammad Dakhlalla and Jaelyn Young were arrested, says it is business as usual at the Golden Triangle transportation hub.
Flight cancellations, Hainsey said, have not increased in the wake of the arrests.
When Young allegedly told FBI investigators posing as IS middlemen the “small-town airport” that services the Golden Triangle shouldn’t pose any problems for her and Muhammad Dakhlalla, she was not expecting a handful of federal agents ready to take them into custody that day.
“That’s one U.S. weakness — small towns’ airports have poor funding and less educated staff so it is easier to get through,” the FBI’s criminal complaint states she allegedly told investigators.
“That’s the perception we have, but we have the same security requirements as Atlanta and other larger airports. We’re small, but our screeners do the same job,” Hainsey said in reaction to Young’s alleged discourse. “Intelligence is our first layer or security, and the FBI operation was way ahead of things.”
GTRA officials, he said, were tipped off by the FBI about the impending sting before it took place. Both Young and Dakhlalla were apprehended in the terminal before reaching the airplane.
“The 24 others on that flight never even knew it happened,” he said. “Our security worked exactly the way it should have.”
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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