(ST. PAUL,  February 15,  2009 Ceegaag Online)  

A civil rights group says federal investigators have been randomly stopping Somali residents at malls, college campuses and the airport to question them.

The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations says it has heard from 50 to 100 people stopped by federal agents since news broke about the disappearance of several young Somali men. The men's families worry they have returned to Somalia to fight.

Twenty-year-old University of Minnesota sophomore Saida Hassan says she was questioned at the airport for three hours and never told why she was detained.

U.S. customs officials won't say whether recent questioning at the airport has to do with the men's disappearance. And an FBI spokesman says all of its agents' conversations with Somalis have been voluntary.

Information from: Minnesota Public Radio News,

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