Anger about this week’s terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., is only natural, but it should not be directed at members of the region’s Middle Eastern community, representatives said Thursday.

Some in that community fear they will be the target of hateful words and, even worse, retaliatory acts.

There have been reports of people from the Middle East being physically attacked and verbally harassed in the Bangor area, but they pale in comparison to incidents in other parts of the country.

In Texas, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at an Islamic center, and in Chicago a firebomb was thrown at an Arab-American community center. On Long Island, N.Y., a drunken man tried to run over a Pakistani woman at a shopping mall, and in a Chicago suburb a man in a ski mask fired an assault rifle at a Yemeni-born U.S. citizen who was working at a gas station.

While many in this region’s Middle Eastern community are trying to go about business as usual, many are frightened, said Mahmoud El-Begearmi, a leader in the local Muslim community and a food safety professor with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. He said the growing community numbers between 200 and 250 people in the Bangor area.

“Some people who talk to me are terrified,” said El-Begearmi, who is originally from Egypt but has been in the United States for 20 years and is now an American citizen. Some are afraid to even leave their homes, he said.

He said hate messages were posted on a university computer bulletin board. One message called for martial law and another implied that the horrific events of Tuesday must have pleased Allah.

Campus officials reviewed the messages and determined they did not violate state law or university policy, said UM spokesman Joe Carr. The university’s internal e-mail system is now under surveillance for potentially offending messages, he said.

In addition, El-Begearmi said he had heard that at University College in Bangor a female student wearing a Muslim scarf had it ripped from her head and her head knocked into a wall. He said school officials and the police were notified of the attack.

Officials at the school and the Bangor Police Department said Thursday they had no reports of such an incident.

Sheri Stevens, the equal opportunity officer at the University of Maine at Augusta, which includes the Bangor campus, said no one at the school was informed that such an incident took place. The school’s security company had no record of such an incident, she said, and no one matching the description of the female student was familiar to University College officials.

On Thursday, Bangor police said they had received only one report from someone who said he was being harassed, and that person was not on a college campus. The man, who is from the Middle East, said someone told him he should go home and that he had received threatening phone calls at home, said Sgt. Jim Owens.

The owner of a Pakistani restaurant in Bangor said Thursday his establishment had been harassed by people driving by displaying American flags and shouting, “Go home.”

Another alleged incident, at Husson College, involved a rumor that a student or students from the Middle East were harassed and moved from the school’s dormitories.

“That is absolutely 100 percent not true,” Husson spokeswoman Julie Green said Wednesday. “No one has been harassed. No one has been moved.”

On Wednesday, Husson College President William Beardsley addressed that campus and urged students not to act out their frustrations. He also cautioned against stereotyping cultures, especially since many U.S. officials have said they believe Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden masterminded Tuesday’s deadly attacks.

“Osama bin Laden no more represents all the people in the Middle East and of his faith than Tim McVeigh represents all the people of his country and his faith,” Beardsley said.

UM President Peter Hoff addressed his campus on the issue Thursday. About 800 people gathered in front of Fogler Library to hear his remarks, which were followed by a moment of silence and the unveiling of a “wall of reflection” where people could write their thoughts about the terrorist attacks.

Hoff said the campus’s international students and employees should be treated as “honored guests,” a remark that drew applause from the crowd.

Also on Thursday, the state’s attorney general issued a statement calling for the protection of the civil rights of all Maine people.

“The natural anger that we feel toward the as yet unknown perpetrators must not be allowed to endanger the rights of innocent people, whatever their ethnic origin,” Attorney General Steven Rowe said.

Thirty-eight students from the Middle East and Pakistan are now enrolled at UM. Some of them agreed to be interviewed Thursday. All of them condemned the deadly attack, but some said they feared revenge. All said they feel safer in Maine than in other parts of the country.

“I still feel threatened knowing that all fingers are pointing to the Middle East,” said Kamal Shannak, a computer engineering student from Jordan.

“I feel people are looking at me,” he added. He said his friends from Saudi Arabia are especially fearful because bin Laden is originally from that country.

“Just because I’m a Muslim does not mean I’m a terrorist or that I want to kill people,” said Shannak.

Other Muslims stressed that their religion expressly forbids – rather than encourages – killing.

“You don’t see in the Koran or the Bible or in Hinduism to go kill,” said Ghobad Vermazani, a computer science student from Iran. “They first talk about peace.”

He said he witnessed the Iranian revolution and the killings it brought firsthand. He came to the United States to escape those horrors and to seek the peace that was so lacking in his homeland.

Vermazani said he now worries that the peace he so desperately sought and found in the United States may be lost in the wake of Tuesday’s terrorist attacks.

“I’m still running,” he said, hanging his head.