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SAN DIEGO — After Sept. 11, a wave of fear swept through this beach town, better known for its sun, surf and laid-back attitude. 

The FBI revealed that two of the hijackers on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon had lived in the area. Several Middle Eastern men who knew them were rounded up. Criminal hearings were held in secret behind locked courtroom doors. 

Monday marks six months after the attacks, and for most here, the panic and alarm of those days has subsided. But for Muslims, whose leaders unanimously condemned the attacks, the wounds of Sept. 11 remain fresh. 

Many Arab-Americans are struggling with what they perceive to be their new status as a persecuted minority. There is a widespread belief that their phones are being tapped, that the media has made them into an object of hate and that the FBI may come knocking at any time, with devastating consequences. 

The enduring lesson, many say, is the fragility of one’s rights. 

“It makes me remember my dad, how they used to feel where they were being interrogated by the local regimes in their countries,” said Mohammed Nasser, a Lebanese-American who serves as director of the San Diego chapter of the Muslim-American Society. 

Randall Hamud, an Arab-American attorney representing two men arrested as material witnesses in the Sept. 11 attacks, said he sees a steady erosion of civil rights. Attorney General John Ashcroft, he said, is “putting the jackboot of repression on my people.” 

“I have no doubt my conversation with you is being recorded,” Hamud told a reporter from his cellular phone earlier this week. 

Scores of Arab-Americans have been questioned by FBI agents in San Diego since the Sept. 11 attacks. A total of four Middle Eastern men were arrested as material witnesses in the days after the attacks. One was let go but three others remain in custody, charged with document fraud or lying to a grand jury. 

While the terrorism probe is no longer front page news, the investigation isn’t dormant. Just last week, an Algerian detained with a former roommate of one of the Sept. 11 hijackers who lived in San Diego was charged with immigration document fraud. 

Many Muslims wonder if they’re next. Poor connections on calls placed to relatives back in the Middle East during the recent Muslim holidays were blamed on eavesdropping. One Muslim leader placed a device on his phone line that showed, he claimed, that his line is tapped. 

Bill Gore, special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Diego office, called the allegations of wiretapping “unfortunate.” He said the FBI does not arbitrarily tap phones. Such decisions, he said, are made with care and a judge must be shown probable cause before a tap can be installed. 

“We couldn’t do our job without the cooperation of law-abiding citizens in the Muslim community,” Gore said. 

Few know the feeling of scrutiny better than Abdussattar Shaikh, a Muslim and retired educator who rented rooms in his home in 2000 to Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, who allegedly hijacked American Airlines Flight 77. The FBI said he is not a suspect, and Shaikh harbors no bitterness toward the 15 to 20 armed agents who searched his home in the suburb of Lemon Grove. 

“I have no complaint at all,” he said Sunday. “I try to look at things from the government’s point of view.” 

Shaikh said his anger is directed at the two hijackers who took advantage of his generosity as a fellow Muslim. He also said he felt mistreated by members of the media who made him a prisoner in his home for three weeks. 

But Muslims say San Diegans in general have treated them well, aside from some coldness in the days immediately following the Sept. 11 attacks. In fact, along with the ubiquitous reports of tapped phones are stories of unexpected acts of kindness. 

Omaran Abdeen recalled walking last month through a local mall with his wife, who wears a Muslim headscarf, when a fellow shopper approached them. 

“She came up to my wife and said ’I really admire your courage to come out with your scarf on and I want you to know we support you,”’ said Abdeen, the San Diego representative of the Council of American-Islamic Relations.