FBI questioning Libyans in America to identify possible sleeper agents, gather intel

The move reflects concerns among U.S. officials—in the wake of an allied bombing campaign that established a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent the massacre of antigovernment rebels—that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi might try to orchestrate revenge attacks against U.S. citizens.

U.S. counterterrorism officials believe that the threat of Libyan-backed terrorism is slightly higher for Europe than for the U.S. Officials on both sides of the Atlantic are searching for signs of nascent terror plots directed or encouraged from Tripoli…

The FBI isn’t responding to intelligence pointing to any specific plot or plots, according to people familiar with the matter. Instead, the FBI is trying to determine whether there is a threat to Americans in the U.S. or overseas. FBI agents hope to gain enough information from the interviews to understand how much of a threat Libya poses.

The FBI effort has other objectives as well. The agency wants to find anyone trying to gather intelligence in the U.S. on behalf of Mr. Gadhafi. The FBI also wants to gather information about Libya that might be of value to U.S. and allied military personnel engaged in Libya.