Dearborn, Michigan —

Before dawn the morning of Halloween, residents of a quaint, tree-lined Michigan neighborhood were jolted awake by the blasts of detonated smoke bombs and a voice shouting in Arabic.

“This is the FBI. We have a warrant. All residents inside … come out with nothing in your hands,” a man yelled before armed federal agents stormed the home in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn.

Shortly after, FBI Director Kash Patel boasted on X the agency had “thwarted a potential terrorist attack” and arrested “multiple” people in Dearborn “allegedly plotting a violent attack over Halloween weekend.”

Considered to be the heart of Arab America, Dearborn is home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States and has frequently faced Islamophobic and hateful remarks. Abdullah Hammoud, the son of Lebanese immigrants, became the first Arab American mayor of Dearborn when he was elected in 2021.

Members of the community, including neighbors and attorneys for the people taken into custody, say they are skeptical of the allegations.

One of these neighbors is Laraib Irfan, who says his Dearborn community is a close-knit, peaceful place where everyone looks out for each other like family.

Irfan was woken up Friday morning by his sister, telling him the FBI agents were outside. He heard two bangs he described as so loud they sounded like bombs and gunfire.

He watched in shock as FBI agents surrounded the house two doors away from his. To his knowledge, the house was home to a family of seven — a mother, father and five sons.

At the sound of the FBI’s command,