Most days, not much happens in this sleepy farming community, population: 100. Yet for a few short, dramatic hours last week, Kinsman doubled in size as scores of armed and armoured federal agents swept in.

U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents - some carrying assault rifles - raided an Islamic slaughterhouse, which opened in the village four years ago. There, the FBI questioned a handful of immigrants, and has kept a conspicuous silence ever since.

The locals say the butchery, located on the outskirts of Chicago, was owned and managed by Pakistanis hailing from Canada - including its owner, who is now in jail under mysterious circumstances.

Faced with this paucity of information, the villagers complain that they are now left to fear a different kind of slaughter may have been in the works. "Our biggest concern is, 'Is everybody safe?' " said Mark Harlow, a corn farmer who doubles as the village mayor. "Don't you think the FBI would tell the community a little something, to relieve the pressure a little bit?"

The FBI has not said why dozens of its agents arrived in more than 40 dark cars and vans on Oct. 18, or why the raid involved a helicopter, surveillance plane and a mobile "command center" trailer on the ground, complete with a satellite up link. For a day, this scrutiny was brought to bear on the ramshackle slaughterhouse, from which the agents pulled records and computer files after getting a search warrant.

Strangely, save for FoxNews.com and the local press, this dragnet made barely a ripple in the news. Either it had to have been a pressing national-security investigation, or a raging paranoia that had gotten completely out of hand.

Tahawar Hussein Rana, a 48-year-old Chicago entrepreneur whom some locals describe as a Canadian, is the only person in custody. A federal U.S. database places him as a current inmate of a Chicago prison, yet there are no publicly filed charges against him. Nor, for that matter is there even mention of a "sealed" indictment.

Neither U.S. authorities nor Mr. Rana's own lawyer - who specializes in defending clients against white-collar-crime allegations - will say why he was arrested in the course of this investigation. (Some U.S. media seem to have confused this Mr. Rana with a younger Canadian of the same name, who told The Globe he runs a legitimate import-export business that has nothing to do with the Illinois slaughterhouse.)

It's possible that the FBI agents didn't know what, precisely, they were looking for as they raided the slaughterhouse.

"Did you see anything out of the ordinary?" the agents repeatedly asked villagers. One line of questioning was whether anyone in the slaughterhouse took an interest in acquiring large amounts of fertilizer. Other questions centered on whether anyone was unduly interested in the local nuclear power plant - "five miles down the road, as the crow flies," Mr. Harlow, the mayor, said.

None of this could have been predicted four years ago, when Mr. Rana is said to have first arrived in the village in a blue Mercedes.

At the time, he was running an immigration consultancy in Chicago, which advertises its abilities to help migrants enter Canada or the United States. Those offices are said to have been raided recently, too, pursuant to the FBI warrant. (A woman who answered the phone at those offices yesterday declined comment.)

But in Kinsman, Ill., his business was to take over Rodowski's Meat Locker, a family business that ran successfully for 50 years before changing hands.

The Muslim entrepreneur was an odd fit for Kinsman, which is more than 95-per-cent white, according to the latest U.S. census data.

Mr. Rana was hardly a fixture there. According to villagers, including one who worked at the plant, other Muslims, also from Pakistan and Canada, were brought in to run the day-to-day business. Mexicans did the grunt work. Some villagers claim some of these workers were led away in handcuffs during the raid, though no else apart from Mr. Rana is known to remain in custody.

The locals say that when the Muslims took over the slaughterhouse, pigs quickly fell out of favor, and goats arrived in herds. The slaughterhouse was given a religious exemption from the federal government to kill livestock without stunning them first. Some Muslims came down from the city during Islamic holidays, the locals say, so they could slit the jugulars themselves in accordance with their customs.

Yesterday, the slaughterhouse appeared deserted, though dozens of sheep, a half a dozen cows and a horse lingered. No meat was in the abandoned freezers, though some animal remains were strewn on the property. One slaughterhouse employee, who lives in town and asked not to be named, said the manager - whom the FBI questioned but had no issues with - told her yesterday he was leaving town.

"I'm going to Canada," he told her, explaining that was where his family lived.

Unaccustomed to Islam - the town's only church is Catholic - the locals say they found the Halal slaughterhouse strange. But for years, their biggest concern was that the occasional stray goat might eat up their gardens and flowerbeds.

Mr. Harlow said such indiscretions led him to complain to the plant's manager, whom he knew only as "Orange beard" for his hennaed facial hair. However, he added, such conversations were always cordial. "He seemed to be a nice guy."