FBI Won’t Stop Quizzing Arab Residents : Minority: But it will drop certain political questions, anti-bias group says. Interviewees are being asked about potential for terrorism.

The FBI rejected requests to stop interviewing Arab-American leaders about potential terrorist plans but has agreed to discontinue certain political questions, leaders of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee reported Monday.

Albert Mokhiber, the committee chairman, said he was assured after meetings in Washington with FBI Director William S. Sessions and Assistant Director William F. Baker, who heads the bureau’s criminal investigative division, that questions to Arab-Americans about how they feel about the Persian Gulf situation and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein will stop.

However, a brief FBI statement was not so explicit. It said that there had been “a productive exchange of mutual concern” and that discussions would continue today.

The statement continued, “The FBI hopes further discussion will foster a better understanding of counterterrorism challenges and assure the Arab-American community that it is not carrying an unfair burden during the gulf crisis.”

In Los Angeles, three Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee leaders who met with Lawrence G. Lawler, agent in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said they were told that the leaders’ public complaints about the interviews--not the interviews themselves--are creating “paranoia” in the Arab-American community.

They quoted Lawler as saying the interviews would continue but that he had gained “heightened awareness” of their concerns that the Arab-American community is being unfairly tarred with a brush of suspicion.

A spokesman for Lawler refused to comment on what was said at the meeting.

Both Don Bustany, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Arab-American committee, and Nazir Bayda, its executive director, said they had assured Lawler that Arab-Americans would report anything they knew about violent activity.

Bayda declared: “The Arab-American community would never give safe haven to any terrorists and would cooperate with the authorities if there was any terrorism.”

In Washington, Mokhiber said he had complained to Sessions that the FBI has been conducting a “fishing expedition into Arab-American personal and political lives,” solely on the basis of their ethnicity, with no real evidence for suspicion.

“We ask that all Americans be asked the same questions about acts of violence and terrorism in this country and that Arab-Americans not be singled out as a special group with particular knowledge,” he said.

The FBI has said that its agents conducted about 200 interviews with Arab-Americans nationwide since the interviews began last week. Lawler was quoted by Bayda as saying that 14 of those have been in the San Francisco area, eight in the Los Angeles region and a few more in San Diego.

Bayda, who was among those interviewed, said the agent who had asked him questions about the political beliefs of committee members was present with Lawler at the meeting Monday and told the committee representatives that he had asked those questions only for his own personal edification and not the FBI’s.

Mokhiber said considerable violence has been directed against Arab-Americans since Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, and he suggested that the FBI investigate the incidents.

“What we’re asking is that cool heads and calm prevail in a moment that is very tense for all Americans,” he added.

Toth reported from Washington and Reich from Los Angeles.