Federal prosecutors' depiction of the suspects in the Fort Dix plot as "radical Islamists" drew sharp criticism from North Jersey's Muslims, who feared that the emphasis on Islam would trigger a backlash.

Arab and Muslim leaders from various national organizations expressed their concerns in a conference call to FBI officials about the focus on Islam that officials used when announcing the charges.

They said in a statement that FBI officials "assured that the charges ... are for individuals and not for a religion or an ethnic or racial group." Later in the day, prosecutors urged the public not to take the alleged actions of a few as a reflection of the Muslim community.

"This should not be taken as a generalized indictment against the Muslim community in New Jersey," U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie said. He praised the Muslim community in New Jersey as being cooperative with law enforcement, and called the defendants "a few bad apples."

But concerns persisted about the impact of the widely publicized link to Islam.

Muslim leaders said the spotlight on the suspects' religion reinforces the stereotype that terrorism is condoned by Islam -- an inaccurate and harmful misperception, they say, that they have been struggling to combat.

"I have no mercy for people who commit a crime, or who plan to commit a crime, as these six men are charged with," said Sohail Mohammed, a Clifton attorney and civil rights activist. "But to make their religion synonymous with their crime is irresponsible, especially when it comes from a high-level United States official."

The phrase identifying the suspects as "radical Islamists" was part of the title of the written announcement released by Christie's office about the arrest of six men charged with plotting to attack the Fort Dix Army post. The announcement then referred to the suspects as "radical Islamists" in the first sentence, and said they had distributed videos that showed "known foreign Islamic radicals urging jihad against the United States."

Salaheddin Mustafa of Paterson said the tendency to link religion and a heinous act seems to affect Muslims disproportionately.

"When that student in Virginia killed all those people, nobody made a big deal of his religion," said Mustafa. "And when there have been shootings in malls and offices, we don't immediately get told what the religion is. These are six crazy people, that's all they are."

Hesham Mahmoud of Rutherford, spokesman for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said Christie's efforts in the press conference to separate the suspects from Islam had prompted him to "give him the benefit of the doubt." He said that in the past, Christie had made admirable efforts to reach out to the Arab and Muslim communities, as well as other minority groups.

At a Turkish restaurant in Paterson, Farid Otman shrugged and sighed over the prominent attention given to the religion of the suspects.

"By now, I am used to it," said Otman, a native of Egypt. "But the backlash is not as bad as it was after Sept. 11. There's been a lot of improvement in communication since then, and a lot of lines of communication opened between Muslims and other faith groups."

Mitchel Maddux and Samantha Henry contributed to this article. E-mail: llorente@northjersey.com