Albany, N.Y. ? An Albany imam and a pizza man helped launder money in a purported plot to sell a shoulder-fired missile to terrorists, prosecutors charged Thursday.

The duo thought they were helping a man buy a missile to kill the Pakistani ambassador in New York City.

But they didn’t know they were dealing with an FBI informant who recorded their every word, according to a complaint filed in Albany federal court.

“There are terrorists among us who want to engage in acts to attack us again,” Gov. George Pataki declared in Albany, hours after the 1:30 a.m. arrests of Imam Yassin Muhiddin Aref, 34, and pizzeria owner Mohammed Mosharref Hossain, 49.

The arrests came a day after New York FBI boss Pasquale D’Amuro told the New York Daily News the agency was monitoring individuals in the New York area suspected of terror groups ties.

Among those groups was the Kurdish terror clan Ansar Al-Islam, to which Aref has been linked by the FBI, sources said.

One source said Aref’s phone number and address turned up in documents found in a terrorist training camp in Iraq, and that he had a code name: The Commander.

In Washington, Deputy Atty. Gen. James Comey emphasized the alleged Albany plot was not connected to the weekend’s heightened terror alert announcement.

He did say, however, the arrests should “send a disruptive message to those out there who might be plotting to harm us. Anyone engaging in terrorist planning would be very wise to consider whether their accomplice is not really one of our guys.”

The FBI raided the imam’s mosque, Masjid As-Salam, forcing worshippers to hold prayers on the sidewalk. There, neighbors and relatives supported both men and declared the busts an FBI setup.

Aref’s wife, Zuhor Jalal, grief stricken as she huddled with her three young children at her home near the mosque, said, “My husband would never hurt anyone.”

Hossain, founder of the mosque and owner of Little Italy Pizza in Albany, was similarly defended.

The men were charged with providing material support to a terrorist group and held without bail.

Sources said the three-year investigation began when Aref called a phone number in northern Iraq that had surfaced in terror investigations in Norway and Germany, sources said.

“Aref was on the phone to that (Ansar) enclave a lot,” said a law enforcement source describing FBI electronic surveillance.

“It’s pretty clear he had connections with a terrorist group,” state Rep. John Sweeney said after a briefing from FBI agents.