The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has said it has discontinued a lecture that taught counter-terrorism agents that mainstream Muslims were violent.

The move comes after leaked documents revealed the controversial elements in the FBI's training manuals.

According to the FBI documents: most American Muslims are likely to be sympathizers to "terrorist" groups like al-Qaeda.

Spencer Ackerman, the journalist who broke this story for the website Wired dot com, told Al-Jazeera why the FBI teachings are "constitutionally dicey".

"There is still a real ignorance and to some degree a real fear of Islam that has found a surprising home in the FBI," he said.

"If they spend their time and resources going after indicators of violent behavior based on the amount of religiosity a person displays, then first of all they are not going to get actual terrorists, but innocent people."