Terrorist funding -
Posted by gravelrash in Gravelrash, Islam, News, Politics (Sunday September 17, 2006 at 1:05 am)
Message from Felis:
The article below deserves  all the expossure it can get and so I moved it into the front page just in case you’d like to go through it again.
The document below raises serious questions about Islamic funds in Australia, the various people who have access to them and their ties to International terrorists. Not included in the document, which is in the format of a submission, (as it was originally intended to be tabled in a Government inquiry into our terrorism laws) are serious questions about the role of various senior Australian politicians. For more detail on those questions, the following links are included. Link1, Link2, Link3
 Some evidence of terrorist financing networks in Australia and their links to foreign terrorist entities
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The purpose of this submission is to provide empirical evidence of the presence of persons in Australia who are associated with parties regarded as supporters and/or perpetrators of acts of violence against civilians in the name of Islam. This submission is therefore a submission in favour of the proposed anti-terrorism legislation.
An analysis of a terrorist financing network present at least in part here in Australia, based on evidence that is primarily in the public domain, forms the basis of the submission.
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In RE: Commercial IBT Pty Ltd (CIBT)
CIBT is a proprietary company which started life as Everich Trading (Aust) Pty Ltd in 1988. It then changed its name to Commercial Banktrust Pty Ltd, then Commercial BT Pty Ltd, and finally Commercial IBT Pty Ltd in 2002.
Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) records show that between April 2002 and 2004, CIBT’s shareholders were two other companies. One of the two, RG Investment Management Pty Ltd, is also incorporated in Australia and had a paid–up capital of just A$ 2. This was later increased to A$50,000.
The other, QI LLC, appears to be incorporated in California ,with its principal business being listed in a Dun and Bradstreet search as being off-set printing.
Documents lodged with ASIC as at 30 July 2004 disclosed that Commercial IBT’s issued and paid up capital was AU$2,209,930,550 (AU$2.2 billion)
CIBT was also registered with the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, as a registered financial corporation pursuant to section 8 of the Financial Sector (Collection of Data) Act 2001. It was only later in June 2004 that APRA caused the name of the corporation and other particulars relating to the corporation to be removed from its register; and that the corporation ceased to be a registered entity within the meaning of subsection 5(3) of the Financial Sector (Collection of Data) Act 2001.
Nevertheless, incorporation under ASIC’s rules and regulations, as well the entry of its name onto the APRA register allowed CIBT to make an application to the Labuan Offshore Financial Services Authority ( LOFSA ) for an off-shore banking license.
LOFSA is a Malaysian Government authority which has jurisdiction over the Labuan Offshore Financial Centre, located on the island of Labuan, which lies just of the coast of the state of Sabah, on the island of Borneo.
LOFSA itself comes under the jurisdiction of the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance. Since 1998, the Prime Minister has also been Finance Minister.
LOFSA requires that applicants for off-shore banking licenses meet the following minimum criteria
• Be already a bank or financial institution;
• Possess sound track record;
• Accorded a good credit rating by acceptable rating agencies;
• Supervised by a competent regulatory authority; and
•Conform to generally accepted standards of international banking practices or BIS, as the case may be.
In order to meet the requirement of a good credit rating by an acceptable rating agency, CIBT approached Rating Agency of Malaysia Bhd (RAM).
RAMÂ Â issued a rating report in May 2002, which can be summarized as follows:
RAM has assigned respective long- and short-term ratings of AA1 and P1 to Commercial BT Pty Limited (“Commercial BT†or “the Bankâ€). The ratings reflect the stand-alone credit risk of Commercial BT. Commercial BT is an Australian-based investment bank which primarily focuses on general investment, corporate advisory services and investment banking activities. The main strength of the Bank lies in its solid balance sheet. Commercial BT, by virtue of its extensive business in the Asia-Pacific region, is also a member of the Asian Bankers Association (“ABAâ€). Members of ABA comprise financial institutions that are based or have operations in Asia and the Australia-Pacific region. Commercial BT has total assets of US$8.12 billion and has world-wide representation, with a staff strength of 150 employees.
LOFSA issued CIBT a license to operate a  full deposit taking bank in Labuan sometime in late 2002. LOFSA, in its annual report for the year ended 31 December 2002 states that Commercial IBT, together with Macquarie Bank Ltd, also of Australia, were the two organizations that year which were granted deposit taking licenses.
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CIBT in business
Upon being granted the license by LOFSA, CIBT issued a press release which was published in Malaysian business dailies. The stories amongst other things quoted CIBT’s president director Dr Adrian Ong saying that Labuan was specifically chosen because it is well regarded internationally for its stringent regulatory regime, competitive rates and infrastructure.
By this time CIBT was advertising itself on its website as being a full licensed bank in Labuan Malaysia involved in all aspects of banking and investment banking including receiving deposits, corporate finance and advisory, private banking, trade finance and fund and asset management. The headquarters of Commercial IBT Bank however, was listed on the website as being in Melbourne, Australia.
It described its activities in Australia as being that of a private investment bank and a registered financial institution with the Reserve Bank of Australia under the Financial Corporations Act 1974 and the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority.Â
Soon after, in September 2003, a member of the opposition in the Malaysian Parliament, Husham Musa, raised questions about CIBT’s business and standing both in Malaysia and Australia. He contended, amongst other things, that CIBT was not a bank as defined by LOFSA, and hence should not have been granted the license it had in Labuan.
The Government, via the Finance Ministry Parliamentary Secretary Hashim Ismail responded by saying that CIBT had only been issued an investment banking license, and that there was therefore no need for it to be a bank in its own jurisdiction in order that it be granted a license by LOFSA.
However, as mentioned earlier, LOFSA’s own annual report of 2002, which must be tabled before Parliament explicitly states that CIBT was issued a license to operate as a deposit taking bank.
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On August 6, 2004, ASIC announced that it had obtained orders in the Supreme Court of Victoria appointing a Provisional Liquidator to Commercial IBT Pty Ltd (Commercial IBT) .
In making its application, ASIC alleged that Commercial IBT had not provided accurate and consistent information to Australian regulators. In support of this contention, ASIC submitted that Commercial IBT had provided or reported inconsistent financial data and reports to ASIC, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), the Australian Taxation Office, an Australian bank, and foreign regulatory authorities and rating agencies.
In addition, ASIC said that it was concerned that Commercial IBT had inadequate accounting and financial reporting measures in place and had failed to keep proper books and records.
ASIC’s application for the appointment of a provisional liquidator to Commercial IBT was supported by APRA.
On 12 November 2004 ASIC announced that it had obtained orders in the Supreme Court of Victoria to wind-up CIBT.
RAM initially suspended the CIBT rating, pending the outcome of the ASIC investigation, without actually revoking it. This was despite the fact that CIBT’s shareholders cancelled the corporation’s shares and reduced its paid-up capital to just $2, just after ASIC gave notice that (it) would be making an application to wind-up the company . RAM withdrew the rating only after ASIC had obtained winding up orders in the Supreme Court of Victoria against CIBT .
LOFSA on the other hand, has yet to take any action against CIBT, and has allowed for the company to continue operating its bank in Labuan. LOFSA continues to list CIBT as a bank registered in Labuan, and names its chief executive, Dr Adrian Ong, a man sought by ASIC, as the bank’s contact person. According to affidavits filed by ASIC and APRA officers as well as the court appointed administrator, LOFSA is fully aware of the orders ASIC obtained against CIBT.
All this taken together with the fact that LOFSA and the Malaysian Ministry of Finance attempted to mislead the public on the issue of the actual license granted CIBT leads to one of two possible conclusions; the first, that Malaysian authorities are involved in a massive cover-up, or two, there is for some reason an unwillingness to act against CIBT even when there is evidence of suspicious dealings.
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Evidence of links between CIBT and the Al-Qaeda financier Sheik Yassin Al-Qadi
When the member of the opposition in the Malaysian Parliament , Husham Musa , raised questions about CIBT’s business in the Malaysian Parliament, he was almost immediately approached by a Malay-Muslim businessman by the name of Wan Hasni Wan Sulaiman, ( who lives and works in Kuala Lumpur,) asking him to stop probing into CIBT’s affairs .
Wan Hasni and business partner Dr Rahim Ghouse, also of Malaysia but who now lives and works in Melbourne, remain shareholders in a Malaysian incorporated company called Abrar Group Sdn Bhd. The CEO and controlling shareholder of that company is one Sheik Yassin Al-Qadi. Wan Hasni and Rahim Ghouse are no longer board members.
Sheik Yassin Al-Qadi has been named by the United States Government and the UN as one of Al-Qaeda’s main financiers. His assets are the subject of freezing orders issued pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1267 .
Despite having his assets frozen in the US and the UK as a result of being named in Resolution 1267 Al-Kadi remains a shareholder of Abrar as well as its chief executive in charge of the company in Malaysia. He has been given permanent residence there.
A subsidiary of that company, Abrar Discounts, is a major financier of Malaysian corporations.
When the member of the opposition in the Malaysian Parliament , Husham Musa , raised questions about CIBT’s business in the Malaysian Parliament, he was almost immediately approached by a , ( who lives and works in Kuala Lumpur,) asking him to stop probing into CIBT’s affairs .Wan Hasni and business partner , also of Malaysia but who now lives and works in Melbourne, remain shareholders in a Malaysian incorporated company called The CEO and controlling shareholder of that company is one  Wan Hasni and Rahim Ghouse are no longer board members. has been named by the United States Government and the UN as one His assets are the subject of freezing orders issued pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1267 .Despite having his assets frozen in the US and the UK as a result of being named in Resolution 1267 Al-Kadi remains a  as well as its chief executive in charge of the company in Malaysia. A subsidiary of that company, is a major financier of Malaysian corporations.
It appears, therefore, that Al-Qadi’s assets have been given shelter by the Malaysian Government.
Both Ghouse and Wan Hasni never had resources of their own, and are not thought of as being independently wealthy but for the capital provided them by Al-Qadi, and a slew of finance industry related licenses provided them by the former Malaysian deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, when he was still Minister for Finance. Ghouse remains, as he has been since 1998, a director and spokesperson of the International Free Anwar Campaign (IFCA).
The IFCA now concerns itself with returning Anwar to power. It implicated itself in the matter of Commercial IBT when , in a series of articles published on its website www.malaysia-today.net, it accused APRA and ASIC of being accomplices in a scheme to discredit Anwar Ibrahim by investigating Commercial IBT’s financial affairs.
Another IFCA director, Raja Petra Kamaruddin admitted that he attempted to prevent further questions about CIBT being raised in the Malaysian Parliament because it might effect Anwar Ibrahim.
Anwar Ibrahim himself has been linked to terrorist financing, as a consequence of his directorship of the International Institute of Islamic Thought. The IIIT is suspected of financing, amongst others, the Palestinian Jihad. Anwar founded the IIIT with a number of others who have known to be members of the Muslim Brotherhood .
Anwar’s entry into mainstream politics was as a result of the intervention of the late Ismail Faruqi, who was also known to have links to the Muslim Brotherhood, an organistation banned even in parts of the Middle East for its extremist views.
Prior to his entry into mainstream politics Anwar was better known as the young Islamic radical who founded the Malaysian Muslim Youth Force, or Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM)
More recently Anwar has spoken in support of Sheik Yusof Al-Qaradawy, after the latter was refused entry to Germany. Al-Qaradawy is already barred from entering the United States as a result of his support for HAMAS.
Anwar visited Australia in March 2005,and is believed to have met with local representatives of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth.Anwar was a founder of WAMY USA,an organization once headed by Abullah bin Laden, brother of Osama, and which is known to have published anti-Semitic material. US investigators also found considerable overlap between the leadership of WAMY USA and the IIIT.Â
Wan Hasni is considered the key man in Commercial IBT, and is known to be the person who makes all appointments within CIBT. Both Wan Hasni and Rahim Ghouse have admitted on camera to having met with Dr Adrian Ong, CIBT’s CEO. (Recall that Wan Hasni has done more than just meet with Adrian Ong, he has also attempted to prevent investigation into the company).
Rahim Ghouse in Australia and the work of the Muslim Community Co-Operative Australia
Rahim Ghouse is today general manager in charge of the operations of the Muslim Community Cooperative of Australia. He has been involved with the Cooperative since at least 2002.
 The Cooperative says that Ghouse’s duties include bringing to the Cooperative his contacts in the international capital markets.
In September2004, at about the same time that ASIC moved against CIBT, the MCCA announced that it had secured AUD 500 million for a home equity housing loan scheme. Such a scheme is run as an alternative to the interest charged mortgage loans provided by other financiers but which are prohibited to Muslims. A scheme such as this was promoted by the Menzies Institute to make housing more affordable but failed to find backers. The MCCA on the other hand claim to have found a major local wholesale financier to back their scheme, but have so far refused to provide details as to the financier’s identity.
The MCCA came to public attention in late 2003, when it was reported that it was the owner of a rural property where Muslim cleric Sheikh Mohammed Omran lived.
Rahim Ghouse is today general manager in charge of the operations of the He has been involved with the Cooperative since at least 2002. The Cooperative says that Ghouse’s duties include bringing to the Cooperative his contacts in the international capital markets.In September2004, at about the same time that ASIC moved against CIBT, the Such a scheme is run as an alternative to the interest charged mortgage loans provided by other financiers but which are prohibited to Muslims. A scheme such as this was promoted by the to make housing more affordable The MCCA on the other hand claim to have found a major local wholesale financier to back their scheme, The MCCA came to public attention in late 2003, when it was reported that it was the owner of a rural property where Muslim cleric lived.
Sheikh Omran came to public attention in September 2003 when it was reported that the Melbourne-based cleric appeared to have links with terror suspect Abu Dahdah, who was recently sentenced to 27 years in jail by a Spanish court on charges of conspiracy in the September 11 attacks and for being a leader of a terrorist group . He had also been identified as the prime mover behind the March 11 2004 terror attacks in Madrid.
Ghouse has denied any involvement in Yassin Al-Qadi’s Abrar Group since at least 1998.
However, as recently as late December 2004, Rahim, as head of the MCCA, sponsored a series of seminars in Australia on Islamic banking  at which the main speaker was the chief executive of Abrar Discounts Sdn Bhd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yassin Al-Qadi’s Abrar Group .
He may have also hosted in Melbourne another Al-Kadi associate in July 2002, Dr Tareq Al-Suwaidan. US investigators have found that Al-Suwaidan had represented Al-Kadi’s business interest in the United States,as well as preached jihad against the West. Al-Suwaidan is known to be a leading member of the Kuwaiti Branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
 He was also, together with Ghouse and Wan Hasni a director of a company called Abrar Inc. That company ceased operations in the United States when it became subject of an investigation by the FBI into the financing of a chemical company named Global Chemicals.Â
In July 2002 The Fellowship of Australian Muslim Students and Youth (FAMSY) hosted their 20th Annual Conference in Melbourne. The conference brought many prominent Muslim speakers to the Australian stage including Dr. Maneh Al-Johani, President of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, Dr. Tareq Al-Suwaidan, Mr. Peter Barnett A.M and Dr. Zachariah Matthews .
Ghouse has refused to either confirm or deny that he met with Al-Suwaidan during the latter’s 2002 visit.
MCCA in the community
The MCCA is active in the Muslim community, especially amongst the youth.
Working with WAMY, and Human Appeal International  (which has been accused of financing HAMAS) the MCCA has sponsored talks in Australia by various speakers who have included Shaker Elsayed ,Secretary General of the Muslim American Society (MAS), titled “Muslim Activism Against Terrorism” held in Sydney on 10 July 2004,and Anwar Ibrahim, titled ” Social Justice and Economic Empowerment” on Sunday, 20 March 2005.
Much has already been said about Anwar,so nothing need be added here .
On Shaker’s speech it is interesting to note that despite the title, he appeared more concerned with justifying actions by Muslims in support of followers of the faith who are perceived to be oppressed.
Shaker ended his speech with the following words:
“…..the plague of violence did not start with Muslims. Muslims constitute more than 73 % of the world’s refugees. There is no ho spot war region in the world where it is Muslims who are occupying other lands or torturing their subjects who are their enemies or it is Muslims who are aggressing against others. It is always the other way around. And as Muslims we stand with pride and support for anyone who sets out his life to defend his rights.”
These appear to be the same fighting words used by Muslims associations involved in the public debate throughout Australia on the matter of terrorism .
These words are described as fighting words for one must remember that ostensibly, Jihad is only justifiable in self-defence. Therefore, an argument of oppression can justify violence.
Heading the MCCA’s community programmes is a Singaporean, Zulfikar Shariff ,who has openly supported Osama bin Laden as well as Sheik Abdullah Azzam, a religious leader credited with inspiring violent jihad in modern times, as well as being a spiritual mentor to Osama.Â
The MCCA also provides funds for schools.For example it provided funds for the Minaret College, Springvale, Victoria’s school hall building project. Interestingly, the school saw it fit to use in its fund raising activities a fatwa issued by Yusuf Al-Qaradawi that calls on Muslims to donate to Muslims schools outside the Muslim world because these “serve as castles for Jihad†and “shields against the surrounding evils.â€
There also appears to have been put in place an initiative to forge Muslim students into a unified whole. In this regard, the MCCA has employed a physiologist whose main duties include “building sustainable relationship between Islamic schools across Australia and become the coordinator of Young Australian Muslim of the Year (YAMY) Award (2005) and school involvement projectâ€.
(GR: Waleed Aly’s wife, Suzanne Carland, was YAMY in 2003/4)
The psychologist Monique Toohey, a convert to Islam, has said that the YAMY project aims at “building capacity†within Islamic schools so that they might deliver a better product to the community.
On the political front, the MCCA has considerable influence over the Islamic Council of Victoria. The ICV’s president, Malcolm Thomas, is married to Nora Thomas who works at the MCCA as an administrator. The secretary of the ICV, Nail Aykan, is also a senior executive of the MCCA.The ICV’s chief executive Rowan Gould regularly distributes material onto mailing list issued by the MCCA,and appears to have a close working relationship with Rahim Ghouse.
The ICV in turn appears to have significant influence over the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC) the peak Muslim body that regularly represents the Muslim community in making representations to state and federal governments. The ICV itself is represented by its Malcolm Thomas on the prime minister’s consultative committee. Another member of its board, Waleed Aly, is often quoted by media on matters concerning the proposed anti-terrorism legislation.
The ICV’s executive, including Malcolm Thomas, Rowan Gould, and Waleed Aly have all refused repeated queries sent them concerning their relationship and that of the ICV to Ghouse and his associates including Yassin Al-Kadi.
Why Australia?
The above shows how persons who have been under scrutiny for terrorist related activities overseas have had no difficulty entering Australia. This factor alone is probably the most important in explaining why the above-mentioned entities have chosen to operate from and in Australia.
On the matter of Australia being used as a base by terrorist financiers like Yassin Al-Kadi, the above shows how easy it has been to escape scrutiny by Australian regulators even when moving around very large sums of money.
In addition, it appears Yassin Al-Qadi and his backers had already tested the waters here as far back as 1998, and found that regulators here were quite forgiving and not prone to asking uncomfortable questions. This assertion is best proven by the case of the East Asian Property Group and its investments here including what is now known as the ABN-AMRO Tower on Macquarie Street.
In 1998 Lend Lease announced that it was to partner the East Asia Property Group (EAPG) in financing the building of the ABN-AMRO Tower on Macquarie Street. As was reported in the AFRÂ :
(EAPG)Â was formed in 1992 when Istethmar International, the investment company for the Saudi-based bin Mahfouz family’s holding company, took a controlling stake. One year earlier family patriarch Sheikh Khalid (bin Mahfouz)Â Â was caught up in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International scandal, the world’s largest banking fraud. More recently the bin Mahfouz family has been linked with the owner of the suspect Sudan pharmaceutical plant destroyed by US missiles in August, Sudanese businessman Mr Salah Idris. This was verified last week when East Asia’s Hong Kong managing director Mr Paul Salnikow, told The Australian Financial Review: “Mr Idris is an adviser with the
National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia,” the bin Mahfouz family’s
major asset. The bin Mahfouz family is also said to be allegedly linked to Islamic militant Osama bin Laden, the US Government’s prime suspect in the recent bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania which left more than 250 people dead. Former CIA director Mr James Woolsey
told a US Senate hearing and the American media that the owner of the plant, is a protégé of a Mr Hafous (sic) chairman of the $US23.2
billion NCB.
Sheik Khalid bin Mahfouz is said to be Sheik Yassin Al-Qadi’s financial backer. Their partnership is best described in this extract from the plaintiffs’ statement of claim in the 9-11 class action :
Yassin Abdullah al-Kadi and Muwaffaq
330. One month after the September 11, 2001 attacks, on October 12, 2001, with Executive Order 13224, President George W. Bush designated Saudi businessman Yassin al-Kadi as a terrorist entity and sponsor for financially supporting al Qaeda. As stated in a United States Department of Treasury Press Release on October 12, 2001:
Yasin al-Qadi (heads) the Saudi-based Muwafaq, (or “Blessed Relief†Foundation, an al Qaeda front that transfers millions of dollars from wealthy Saudi businessmen to bin Laden.
331. Defendant Muwaffaq (or “Blessed Relief”) was registered in the Channel Islands in 1992 but run from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The Blessed Relief charity had an international presence with offices in Europe, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Sudan, Somalia and a post office box in the United States. Blessed Relief purported to conduct traditional relief work such as the distribution of food, clothing and medical equipment to victims of war or famine. Blessed Relief was endowed by Defendant Khalid bin Mahfouz, the al Qaeda financier, and run by Yassin al-Kadi. Khalid bin Mahfouz’s son, Abdulrahman bin Mahfouz, is also a director of the Blessed Relief charity.
332. Yassin al-Kadi ran Blessed Relief from 1992 until approximately 1997 with $15 to $20 million of his own money, along with contributions from other wealthy associates. Millions of dollars have been transferred to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda through Blessed Relief. An audit of the Defendant National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia in the mid-1990s, which was then run by Khalid bin Salim bin Mahfouz, reveals the transfer of $3 million for Osama bin Laden that was moved from the accounts of wealthy Saudi businessmen to Blessed Relief.
333. In a 1995 interview, Osama bin Laden identified Blessed Relief’s place in his support network, “The bin-Laden Establishment’s aid covers 13 countries . . . this aid comes in particular from the Human Concern International Society.” Osama bin Laden went on to list a number of the Human Concern International’s branches, including the Blessed Relief Society.
The EAPG remains a company controlled by the bin Mahfouz family, and continues to build its portfolio of assets in this country.
Conclusion
Australia appears to have become the jurisdiction of choice for Al-Qaeda financiers seeking a safe-haven for their assets that might be otherwise frozen in other jurisdictions.
The influence of groups associated with these persons is growing both within and without the Muslim community and its does appear as if there is a concerted effort to create here an effective Muslim lobby which can strongly influence governments.
Anecdotal evidence from the media would suggest that the objective of these efforts is to turn Australia into a supporter rather than an objector to the jihadi cause, more aligned to current European than American policies towards the Middle East.’
This objective does not however preclude the use of force in this country, this assertion evidenced by the constant use of “fighting words.†Nevertheless, it is obvious that the matters outlined above are not likely to be offences as currently defined by Australian law.
Australia appears to have become The influence of groups associated with these persons is growing both within and without the Muslim community Anecdotal evidence from the media would suggest This objective does not however preclude the use of force in this country, this assertion evidenced by the constant use of “fighting words.†Nevertheless, it is obvious that the matters outlined above are not likely to be offences as currently defined by Australian law.
However, can Australia afford to ignore the matters described above? Surely the answer to that question must be in the negative.
Thus it is submitted that the above provides arguments for:
a)Â Better surveillance of Islamic financial co-operatives, charities and other social organizations, and their officers and employees.
b)Â Closer scrutiny of all financial flows. In this regard, the roles played by ASIC and APRA need to be re-evaluated to determine if the proposed legislation ought to be broadened to cover the work of these organizations as well.
Hence, it is submitted that there is evidence in support of the case for legislation of the type proposed.
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[1] Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) company search
[2] See http://www.lofsa.gov.my/lofsa5/labiofc/offbank/guidebank.pdf
[3] Sadna Saifuddin†Commercial IBT Bank opens Labuan branch†, 5 April 2003 Business Times
[4] see archived CIBT website at http://web.archive.org/web/20030410055226/www.cibtbank.com/about.htmÂ
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[5] See ASIC press release at http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/asic_pub.nsf/byheadline/04-370+ASIC+winds+up+Australian-based+Malaysian+bank?openDocument
[6] see Note 1
[7] http://www.ram.com.my/custom.cfm?name=press.cfm&id=937
[8] Interview with Husham Musa
[9] See generally http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/committees/1267Template.htm
[10] Dun and Bradstreet search current as of May 2004
[11] See story by Raja Petra Kamaruddin “ Does a conspiracy to GET ANWAR really exist?†and related stories at  http://www.malaysia-today.net/Blog-e/2005/06/does-conspiracy-to-get-anwar-really.htm
[12]See paragraph 6-8 of website located at  http://www.malaysia-today.net/loonyMY/2005/06/if-fire-is-too-hot-get-out-of-kitchen.htm
[13] see story at http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/southeastasia/view/53888/1/.html
[14] See the affidavit of US Customs Agent David Kane; http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/vae/ArchivePress/SeptemberPDFArchive/03/biheirisupp091203.pdf
[15] http://euronews.net/create_html.php?page=detail_info&article=310931&lng=1
[16]Anwar, institute linked to overseas terror group - Aussie TV report, Bernama, 23 October 2003, located at
 http://www.mca.org.my/story.asp?file=/articles/news/2003/10/25/19027.html&sec=In+The+News. Readers attention is drawn to the last paragraph that reads:
Rahim said he had no dealings with Sheikh Yassin since leaving Malaysia for Australia in 1998. “I left all these matters to Dr Wan Hasni on all the matters of Abrar,” he said. -
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[17] See advertisement at http://islamicsydney.com/story.php?id=1925
[18] See generally Abrar Discounts website located at http://www.abrardiscounts.com.my/
[19] See note 12:
[20] See the affidavit of the FBI’s Valerie Donahue. Story reported in the Wall Street Journal by Glenn R. Simpson; Tracing the Money Trail, U.S. Terror Investigators Encounter Yassin
Qadi — As Saudi Businessman’s Deals Draw Scrutiny, He Denies Any
Wrongdoing — The $2.1 Million That Vanished: 27 November 2002
The Asian Wall Street Journal
[21] see http://www.icv.org.au/ICV_Sep.pdf
[22] Email queries to Ghouse were sent in mid-2004
[23] Nick Mckenzie; Islamic charity questioned over terrorist links; ABC Radio National; 23 September 2003Â Â
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[24]For example,    Soadad Doureihi of the Hizb ut-Tahrir branch in Sydney,Australia
spoke at Sydney University on 24 August 2005, on the topic of
terrorism, invited by the Sydney University Muslims Students
Association ,as part of their Islamic Awareness Week activities.
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Soadad Doureihi’s main points were these:
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a)The war against Iraq, Afghanistan and indeed Muslims all over the
world is a continuation of the Western world’s war against political
Islam commenced by the West at the turn of the century; but which can
trace its origins back to the Crusades and indeed to the earliest days
of the Caliphate founded by the Prophet Mohamad.
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b) From the earliest days, Muslims ever only acted in self-defence;
Soadad Doureihi implied that this is the case even today, for there is
not any proof that Muslims were responsible for 9-11 or the London
bombing.
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c) Muslims today are not only being attacked by Western armies, they
are also being “coerced” into accepting the values and norms of the
West-he includes here Muslims living in the West, including Australia.
Military might and force ,as well as propaganda are the tools of
this coercion.
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d) While Muslim leaders are being “ordered” to address the issue of
terrorism , Western nations themselves are not willing to apologise
for their colonial past and its consequences which include:
i) imposition of arbitrary borders on the Muslim world
ii) purposeful division that has led to internal conflict among Muslims
iii) installation and support for corrupt regimes and rulers-these
include Mustafa Atatruk-” a puppet of the British and Americans.”
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e) That internal conflict among Muslims is a cause for what the West
calls terrorism, -and they fail to see that they must accept the
consequences of their own actions.
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Thus Hizb ut Tahir appears to justify acts of violence by Muslims by arguing that Muslims are being oppressed.
The reference to war against the Muslim world and the coercion of
Muslims in Western countries must be seen in context of the argument
that the Prophet and his followers only commenced war in self-defence.
Thus, in accordance with the Sunnah (the acts and words of the
Prophet) , it is acceptable, even required of Muslims to wage war
against those who would coerce them, and this would include the
Australian Government.
[25] See http://www.mcca.com.au/page.php?id=sponsorship&product_id=16
[26] Zulfikar Shariff arrived in Australia seeking refuge from what he claimed was religious persecution in Singapore.However,very soon after his arrival he began working to deflect media investigations into CIBT ,and then went on to work at the MCCA.Thus hre we again see a further link between CIBT ,Ghouse and radical Islam.
[27] http://web.archive.org/web/20020206160430/http://www.fateha.com/cgi-bin/newspro/qa/fullnews.cgi?newsid1001413396,19170
[28]See http://web.archive.org/web/20030508082917/http://www.fateha.com/cgi-bin/newspro/commnews/fullnews.cgi?newsid1001482954,60735
[29] http://www.minaret.vic.edu.au/news/statement.htm
Â
Â
Â
[30] http://www.mcca.com.au/page.php?id=4000&product_id=4
[31] http://www.unimas.my/kaunseling05/files/speaker_info/bio_%20moniques.htm
[32] Email query and response from Monique Toohey
[33] http://www.mcca.com.au/page.php?id=MelbBranch&product_id=63
[34] Lisa Allen, Saudi Link With Renzo Piano Tower, Australian Financial Review, 15 October 1998
[35] see Burnett v. al Baraka Investment and Dev. Corp; Case Number
1:02CV01616(JR)
Â
Friday, March 21, 2008
Al Qaeda linked IIIT & Anwar Ibrahim
UCF funded by Al Qaeda linked IIIT for Islamic chair "to promote Islamisation of knowlege" refuses to cancel Islamofacist event
March 10, 2006
University of Central Florida Slated To Become Cultural Jihad Hub
...Imam Dremali's Islamist-Fest Seen As Program's Debut...
By Beila Rabinowitz & William A. Mayer - E&P PipeLineNews.org
March 10, 2006 - Washington, DC - PipeLineNews.org -
On March 8 PipeLineNews.org correspondent Beila Rabinowitz broke a story University Of Central Florida Funding Islamist Da'wa Event which detailed how this publicly funded college was promoting and hosting a Muslim Da'Wa [conversion] seminar featuring noted radical Imams.
We have been in touch with UCF officials, including Kerry P. Welch who is the Director of Student Involvement at the campus, with the intent of making clear our concern that this event should not take place as scheduled on March 17.
We were informed by Mr. Welsh that the event will go forward regardless of the concerns of many organizations including the American Jewish Congress.
We have discovered that there is a reason for UCF's intransigence in this matter.
Our research shows that the college is looking to create - through a huge endowment by the IIIT [International Institute of Islamic] a Saudi group linked to al-Qaeda - an "Islamic Studies" chair which will in actuality serve to propagate Islamist intolerance throughout the Southeast.
IIIT's Terror Links
Anwar Ibrahim is a founder and director of the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a think tank in Virginia that has alleged links to terrorism. IIIT's 2003 tax-exempt IRS filing lists a $720 donation to the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation of Ashland, Oregon, which was designated as a terrorist funding organization by the U.S. government in 2004. Among the Treasury Department's findings were that the Oregon branch of al-Haramain engaged in tax fraud, money laundering, supporting Chechen mujahideen affiliated with al Qaeda, and had "direct links between the U.S. branch and Usama bin Laden." In fact, many of al-Haramain's offices around the world were closed for supporting terrorism.
"There is more evidence of IIIT's links to terrorism. A few examples: according to court documents, in the early 1990s IIIT donated at least $50,000 to a think tank run by Sami al-Arian, the World Islamic and Study Enterprise (WISE), that served as a front group for Palestinian Islamic Jihad. IIIT is also named as a defendant in two class-action lawsuits brought by victims of the 9/11 attacks. One alleges that IIIT received the bulk of its operating expenses from the SAAR network, whose component groups are accused in another class-action suit of being "fronts for the sponsor of al Qaeda and international terror." The same suit lists IIIT as well as every officer of IIIT besides Anwar Ibrahim as a supporter of the SAAR network. This public information was available to SAIS, yet the school extended a fellowship to Ibrahim." - Source Link, Campus Watch
Not wanting to lose that funding UCF policy is being twisted to accommodate and explain away what can only be described as a troubling - March 17 "Returning to Our Rabb" [Lord] Muslim proselytizing - presence on the campus.
Background:
In February noted American Islamist apologist John Esposito, ended an address at UCF in this manner:
"...Esposito closed his speech with a reminder of the important role UCF and other universities around the country play in fostering the understanding of Islam that is crucial to its relationship with the West. He expressed optimism in UCF, noting that its growing international focus and interest in Middle Eastern studies is being noticed around the country...UCF must continue to build and develop programs offering dynamic curricula and study abroad opportunities in the Middle East and other Muslim countries, Esposito said. UCF also should bring others from the Muslim world to the campus to interact with students and faculty..." - Georgetown Professor: Wars, Repression, Media Helped Build Conflicts Between Islam, the West
Professor Esposito is closely linked to the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) which has been promoting the below referenced - "Al Ghazli Islam Studies Project." Esposito's Alwaheed Center at Georgetown University was funded by Saudi Wahhabist money - the same methodology apparently playing out at UCF.
Of this project IIIT states:
"...The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) will match donations to an endowment for a chair in Islamic studies at the University of Central Florida. The idea of an islamic studies chair is the initiative of a small group of community and university members under the auspices of Al-Ghazali Educational Foundation, LLC. This endowment seeks to bring a distinguished Islamic scholar to the University of Central Florida in the College of Arts and Sciences' Middle Eastern Studies Program.
Led by Imam Tariq Rasheed, Sr. Safia Ansari and Professor Husain Kassim, Al-Ghazali Educational Foundation's effort seeks to help establish chairs for Islamic studies at selected university campuses."
The IIIT mission statement shows that their agenda is indoctrination not education and that adding UCF would merely be one more trophy in the Wahhabist campaign.
From the IIIT website, in which announce that they are engaged in,
"Signing agreements of cooperation with various universities, research centers and academic institutions throughout the world to carry out activities of mutual interest...The International Institute of Islamic Thought is dedicated to the revival and reform of Islamic thought and its methodology in order to enable the Ummah to deal effectively with present challenges, and contribute to the progress of human civilization in ways that will give it a meaning and a direction derived from divine guidance. The realization of such a position will help the Ummah regain its intellectual and cultural identity and re-affirm its presence as a dynamic civilization. - Source Link, IIIT Website
In his response to our request to cancel the conference, the UCF Director of Student Involvement Kerry Welch replied that, "...freedom of speech is what makes this country great."
This is a twisted and cynical justification for holding an extremist Muslim conference. It is also transparent in that the primary consideration at this point seems to be avoiding any offense to the Wahhabis who might potentially endow UCF's Islamic Studies chair.
If the University of Central Florida carries through with the plan to accept funding from the IIIT, it will have made the decision that the University's "mutual interests" are with the supporters of terrorism and Islamofacism.
In that manner the University of Central Florida will be opting to become the "UCF - Ummah of Central Florida" joining the ranks of Jihad U [the University of South Florida] as a hub of terror.
©1999-2006 PipeLineNews.org, all rights reserved.
March 10, 2006
University of Central Florida Slated To Become Cultural Jihad Hub
...Imam Dremali's Islamist-Fest Seen As Program's Debut...
By Beila Rabinowitz & William A. Mayer - E&P PipeLineNews.org
March 10, 2006 - Washington, DC - PipeLineNews.org -
On March 8 PipeLineNews.org correspondent Beila Rabinowitz broke a story University Of Central Florida Funding Islamist Da'wa Event which detailed how this publicly funded college was promoting and hosting a Muslim Da'Wa [conversion] seminar featuring noted radical Imams.
We have been in touch with UCF officials, including Kerry P. Welch who is the Director of Student Involvement at the campus, with the intent of making clear our concern that this event should not take place as scheduled on March 17.
We were informed by Mr. Welsh that the event will go forward regardless of the concerns of many organizations including the American Jewish Congress.
We have discovered that there is a reason for UCF's intransigence in this matter.
Our research shows that the college is looking to create - through a huge endowment by the IIIT [International Institute of Islamic] a Saudi group linked to al-Qaeda - an "Islamic Studies" chair which will in actuality serve to propagate Islamist intolerance throughout the Southeast.
IIIT's Terror Links
Anwar Ibrahim is a founder and director of the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a think tank in Virginia that has alleged links to terrorism. IIIT's 2003 tax-exempt IRS filing lists a $720 donation to the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation of Ashland, Oregon, which was designated as a terrorist funding organization by the U.S. government in 2004. Among the Treasury Department's findings were that the Oregon branch of al-Haramain engaged in tax fraud, money laundering, supporting Chechen mujahideen affiliated with al Qaeda, and had "direct links between the U.S. branch and Usama bin Laden." In fact, many of al-Haramain's offices around the world were closed for supporting terrorism.
"There is more evidence of IIIT's links to terrorism. A few examples: according to court documents, in the early 1990s IIIT donated at least $50,000 to a think tank run by Sami al-Arian, the World Islamic and Study Enterprise (WISE), that served as a front group for Palestinian Islamic Jihad. IIIT is also named as a defendant in two class-action lawsuits brought by victims of the 9/11 attacks. One alleges that IIIT received the bulk of its operating expenses from the SAAR network, whose component groups are accused in another class-action suit of being "fronts for the sponsor of al Qaeda and international terror." The same suit lists IIIT as well as every officer of IIIT besides Anwar Ibrahim as a supporter of the SAAR network. This public information was available to SAIS, yet the school extended a fellowship to Ibrahim." - Source Link, Campus Watch
Not wanting to lose that funding UCF policy is being twisted to accommodate and explain away what can only be described as a troubling - March 17 "Returning to Our Rabb" [Lord] Muslim proselytizing - presence on the campus.
Background:
In February noted American Islamist apologist John Esposito, ended an address at UCF in this manner:
"...Esposito closed his speech with a reminder of the important role UCF and other universities around the country play in fostering the understanding of Islam that is crucial to its relationship with the West. He expressed optimism in UCF, noting that its growing international focus and interest in Middle Eastern studies is being noticed around the country...UCF must continue to build and develop programs offering dynamic curricula and study abroad opportunities in the Middle East and other Muslim countries, Esposito said. UCF also should bring others from the Muslim world to the campus to interact with students and faculty..." - Georgetown Professor: Wars, Repression, Media Helped Build Conflicts Between Islam, the West
Professor Esposito is closely linked to the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) which has been promoting the below referenced - "Al Ghazli Islam Studies Project." Esposito's Alwaheed Center at Georgetown University was funded by Saudi Wahhabist money - the same methodology apparently playing out at UCF.
Of this project IIIT states:
"...The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) will match donations to an endowment for a chair in Islamic studies at the University of Central Florida. The idea of an islamic studies chair is the initiative of a small group of community and university members under the auspices of Al-Ghazali Educational Foundation, LLC. This endowment seeks to bring a distinguished Islamic scholar to the University of Central Florida in the College of Arts and Sciences' Middle Eastern Studies Program.
Led by Imam Tariq Rasheed, Sr. Safia Ansari and Professor Husain Kassim, Al-Ghazali Educational Foundation's effort seeks to help establish chairs for Islamic studies at selected university campuses."
The IIIT mission statement shows that their agenda is indoctrination not education and that adding UCF would merely be one more trophy in the Wahhabist campaign.
From the IIIT website, in which announce that they are engaged in,
"Signing agreements of cooperation with various universities, research centers and academic institutions throughout the world to carry out activities of mutual interest...The International Institute of Islamic Thought is dedicated to the revival and reform of Islamic thought and its methodology in order to enable the Ummah to deal effectively with present challenges, and contribute to the progress of human civilization in ways that will give it a meaning and a direction derived from divine guidance. The realization of such a position will help the Ummah regain its intellectual and cultural identity and re-affirm its presence as a dynamic civilization. - Source Link, IIIT Website
In his response to our request to cancel the conference, the UCF Director of Student Involvement Kerry Welch replied that, "...freedom of speech is what makes this country great."
This is a twisted and cynical justification for holding an extremist Muslim conference. It is also transparent in that the primary consideration at this point seems to be avoiding any offense to the Wahhabis who might potentially endow UCF's Islamic Studies chair.
If the University of Central Florida carries through with the plan to accept funding from the IIIT, it will have made the decision that the University's "mutual interests" are with the supporters of terrorism and Islamofacism.
In that manner the University of Central Florida will be opting to become the "UCF - Ummah of Central Florida" joining the ranks of Jihad U [the University of South Florida] as a hub of terror.
©1999-2006 PipeLineNews.org, all rights reserved.
Wahhabism & Islam in the U.S.
E-mail Author
Send to a Friend
Version
June 30, 2003, 11:20 a.m.
Wahhabism & Islam in the U.S.
Two-faced policy fosters danger.
By Stephen Schwartz
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the text of testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security on Thursday, June 26, 2003.
hairman Kyl, other distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for your invitation to appear here today.
I come before this body to describe how adherents of Wahhabism, the most extreme, separatist, and violent form of Islam, and the official sect in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, have come to dominate Islam in the U.S.
Islam is a fairly new participant at the "big table" of American religions. The Muslim community only became a significant element in our country's life in the 1980s. Most "born Muslims," as opposed to those who "converted" — a term Muslims avoid, preferring "new Muslims" — had historically been immigrants from Pakistan and India who followed traditional, peaceful, mainstream Islam.
With the growth of the Islamic community in America, there was no "Islamic establishment" in the U.S. — in contrast with Britain, France, and Germany, the main Western countries with significant Islamic minorities. Historically, traditional scholars have been a buffer against extremism in Islam, and for various sociological and demographic reasons, American Islam lacked a stratum of such scholars. The Wahhabi ideological structure in Saudi Arabia perceived this as an opportunity to fill a gap — to gain dominance over an Islamic community in the West with immense potential for political and social influence.
But the goals of this operation, which was largely successful, were multiple.
First, to control a significant group of Muslim believers.
Second, to use the Muslim community in the U.S. to pressure U.S. government and media, in the formulation of policy and in perceptions about Islam. This has included liaison meetings, "sensitivity" sessions and other public activities with high-level administration officials, including the FBI director, that we have seen since September 11.
Third, to advance the overall Wahhabi agenda of "jihad against the world" — an extremist campaign to impose the Wahhabi dispensation on the global Islamic community, as well as to confront the other religions. This effort has included the establishment in the U.S. of a base for funding, recruitment, and strategic/tactical support of terror operations in the U.S. and abroad.
Wahhabi-Saudi policy has always been two-faced: that is, at the same time as the Wahhabis preach hostility and violence against non-Wahhabi Muslims, they maintain a policy of alliance with Western military powers — first Britain, then the U.S. and France — to assure their control over the Arabian Peninsula.
At the present time, Shia and other non-Wahhabi Muslim community leaders estimate that 80 percent of American mosques are under Wahhabi control. This does not mean 80 percent of American Muslims support Wahhabism, although the main Wahhabi ideological agency in America, the so-called Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has claimed that some 70 percent of American Muslims want Wahhabi teaching in their mosques.1This is a claim we consider unfounded.
Rather, Wahhabi control over mosques means control of property, buildings, appointment of imams, training of imams, content of preaching — including faxing of Friday sermons from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — and of literature distributed in mosques and mosque bookstores, notices on bulletin boards, and organizational solicitation. Similar influence extends to prison and military chaplaincies, Islamic elementary and secondary schools (academies), college campus activity, endowment of academic chairs and programs in Middle East studies, and most notoriously, charities ostensibly helping Muslims abroad, many of which have been linked to or designated as sponsors of terrorism.
The main organizations that have carried out this campaign are the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which originated in the Muslim Students' Association of the U.S. and Canada (MSA), and CAIR. Support activities have been provided by the American Muslim Council (AMC), the American Muslim Alliance (AMA), the Muslim American Society (MAS), the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, its sister body the International Institute of Islamic Thought, and a number of related groups that I have called "the Wahhabi lobby." ISNA operates at least 324 mosques in the U.S. through the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT). These groups operate as an interlocking directorate.
Both ISNA and CAIR, in particular, maintain open and close relations with the Saudi government — a unique situation, in that no other foreign government directly uses religion as a cover for its political activities in the U.S. For example, notwithstanding support by the American Jewish community for the state of Israel, the government of Israel does not intervene in synagogue life or the activities of rabbinical or related religious bodies in America.
According to saudiembassy.net, the official website of the Saudi government, CAIR received $250,000 from the Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank, an official Saudi financial institution, in 1999, for the purchase of land in Washington, D.C., to construct a headquarters facility.2
In a particularly disturbing case, the Islamic Development Bank also granted US$295,000 to the Masjid Bilal Islamic Center, for the construction of the Bilal Islamic Primary and Secondary School in California, in 1999.3 Hassan Akbar, an American Muslim presently charged with a fatal attack on his fellow soldiers in Kuwait during the Iraq intervention, was affiliated with this institution.
In addition, the previously mentioned official website of the Saudi government reported a donation in 1995 of $4 million for the construction of a mosque complex in Los Angeles, named for Ibn Taymiyyah, a historic Islamic figure considered the forerunner of Wahhabism.4 (It should be noted that Ibn Taymiyyah is viewed as a marginal, extremist, ideological personality by many traditional Muslims. In the wake of the Riyadh bombings of 2003, the figure of Ibn Taymiyyah symbolized, in Saudi public discourse, the inner rot of the regime. An article in the reformist daily al-Watan was headlined, "Who is More Important? The Nation or Ibn Taymiyyah"? Soon after it appeared, Jamal Khashoggi, editor of al-Watan and former deputy editor of Arab News, was dismissed from his post.)
The same official Saudi website reported a donation of $6 million, also in 1995, for a mosque in Cincinnati, Ohio.5 The website further stated, in 2000, "In the United States, the Kingdom has contributed to the establishment of the Islamic Center in Washington DC; the Omer Bin Al-Khattab Mosque in western Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Islamic Center, and the Fresno Mosque in California; the Islamic Center in Denver, Colorado; the Islamic center in Harrison, New York City; and the Islamic Center in Northern Virginia."6
How much money, in total, is involved in this effort? If we accept a low figure of control, i.e. NAIT ownership of 27 percent of 1,200 mosques, stated by CAIR and cited by Mary Jacoby and Graham Brink in the St. Petersburg Times,7 we have some 324 mosques.
If we assume a relatively low average of expenditures, e.g. $.5 million per mosque, we arrive at $162 million.
But given that Saudi official sources show $6 million in Cincinnati and $4 million in Los Angeles, we should probably raise the average to $1 million per mosque, resulting in $324 million as a minimum.
Our view is that the number of mosques under Wahhabi control actually totals at least 600 out of the official total of 1,200, while, as noted, Shia community leaders endorse the figure of 80 percent Wahhabi control. But we also offer a number of 4-6,000 mosques overall, including small and diverse congregations of many kinds.
A radical critic of Wahhabism stated some years ago that $25m had been spent on Islamic Centers in the U.S. by the Saudi authorities. This now seems a low figure. Another anti-extremist Islamic figure has estimated Saudi expenses in the U.S., over 30 years, and including schools and free books as well as mosques, near a billion dollars.
It should also be noted that Wahhabi mosques in the U.S. work in close coordination with the Muslim World League (MWL) and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), Saudi state entities identified as participants in the funding of al Qaeda.
Wahhabi ideological control within Saudi Arabia is based on the historic compact of intermarriage between the family of the sect's originator, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, and the family of the founding ruler, Ibn Saud. To this day, these families divide governance of the kingdom, with the descendants of Ibn al-Wahhab, known as ahl al-Shaykh, responsible for religious life, and the Saudi royal family, or ahl al-Saud, running the state. The two families also continue to marry their descendants to one another. The supreme religious leader of Saudi Arabia is a member of the family of Ibn al-Wahhab. The state appoints a minister of religious affairs who controls such bodies as MWL and WAMY, and upon leaving his ministerial post he becomes head of MWL.
The official Saudi-embassy website reported exactly one year ago, on June 26, 2002, "The delegation of the Muslim World League (MWL) that is on a world tour promoting goodwill arrived in New York yesterday, and visited the Islamic Center there." The same website later reported, on July 8, 2002, "During a visit on Friday evening to the headquarters of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) [Secretary-General of the MWL Dr. Abdullah bin Abdulmohsin Al-Turki] advocated coordination among Muslim organizations in the United States. Expressing MWL's readiness to offer assistance in the promotion and coordination of Islamic works, he announced plans to set up a commission for this purpose. The MWL delegation also visited the Islamic Center in Washington DC and was briefed on its activities by its director Dr. Abdullah bin Mohammad Fowaj."8
In a related matter, on June 22, 2003, in a letter to the New York Post, James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, a civic lobbying organization, stated that his attendance at a press conference of WAMY in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, had been organized by the U.S. embassy in the kingdom. If this is true, it is extremely alarming. The U.S. embassy should not act as a supporter of WAMY, which, as documented by FDD and the Saudi Institute,9 teaches that Shia Muslims, including even the followers of Ayatollah Khomeini, are Jewish agents.
This is comparable to Nazi claims that Jewish business owners were Communists, or Slobodan Miloševic's charge, in the media of ex-Yugoslavia, that Tito was an agent of the Vatican. The aim is to derange people, to separate them from reality completely, in preparation for massacres. We fear that official Saudi anxiety their large and restive Shia minority, aggravated by Saudi resentment over the emergence of a protodemocratic regime in Iraq led by Shias, and consolidation of popular sovereignty in Shia Iran, may lead the Saudi regime to treat Shias as a convenient scapegoat, making them victims of a wholesale atrocity. The history of Wahhabism is filled with mass murder of Shia Muslims.
There is clearly a problem of Wahhabi/Saudi extremist influence in American Islam. The time is now to face the problem squarely and find ways to enable and support traditional, mainstream American Muslims in taking their community back from these extremists, while employing law enforcement to interdict the growth of Wahhabism and its financial support by the Saudis. If we fail to do this, Wahhabi extremism continues to endanger the whole world — Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Thank you for your attention.
NOTES
1 Council on American Islamic Relations, The Mosque in America: A National Portrait, A Report from the Mosque Study Project, April 26, 2001.
2 Saudi Embassy Press Archive, August 15, 1999.
3 Islamic Development Bank; also, "IDB Allocates $202 Mln to Finance Islamic Development Ventures," Arabic News, 1/25/2000.
4 Saudi Embassy Press Archive, July 8, 1995.
5 Saudi Embassy Press Archive, November 10, 1995.
6 Saudi Embassy Press Archive, March 5, 2000.
7 "Saudi Form of Islam Wars With Moderates," St. Petersburg Times, March 11, 2003.
8 Saudi Embassy Press Archive.
9 Ali al-Ahmed and Stephen Schwartz, "Saudis Spread Hate Speech in U.S," Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Washington, copublished with Saudi Institute.
— Stephen Schwartz is director, Islam and Democracy Program at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-schwartz063003.asp
Send to a Friend
Version
June 30, 2003, 11:20 a.m.
Wahhabism & Islam in the U.S.
Two-faced policy fosters danger.
By Stephen Schwartz
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the text of testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security on Thursday, June 26, 2003.
hairman Kyl, other distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for your invitation to appear here today.
I come before this body to describe how adherents of Wahhabism, the most extreme, separatist, and violent form of Islam, and the official sect in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, have come to dominate Islam in the U.S.
Islam is a fairly new participant at the "big table" of American religions. The Muslim community only became a significant element in our country's life in the 1980s. Most "born Muslims," as opposed to those who "converted" — a term Muslims avoid, preferring "new Muslims" — had historically been immigrants from Pakistan and India who followed traditional, peaceful, mainstream Islam.
With the growth of the Islamic community in America, there was no "Islamic establishment" in the U.S. — in contrast with Britain, France, and Germany, the main Western countries with significant Islamic minorities. Historically, traditional scholars have been a buffer against extremism in Islam, and for various sociological and demographic reasons, American Islam lacked a stratum of such scholars. The Wahhabi ideological structure in Saudi Arabia perceived this as an opportunity to fill a gap — to gain dominance over an Islamic community in the West with immense potential for political and social influence.
But the goals of this operation, which was largely successful, were multiple.
First, to control a significant group of Muslim believers.
Second, to use the Muslim community in the U.S. to pressure U.S. government and media, in the formulation of policy and in perceptions about Islam. This has included liaison meetings, "sensitivity" sessions and other public activities with high-level administration officials, including the FBI director, that we have seen since September 11.
Third, to advance the overall Wahhabi agenda of "jihad against the world" — an extremist campaign to impose the Wahhabi dispensation on the global Islamic community, as well as to confront the other religions. This effort has included the establishment in the U.S. of a base for funding, recruitment, and strategic/tactical support of terror operations in the U.S. and abroad.
Wahhabi-Saudi policy has always been two-faced: that is, at the same time as the Wahhabis preach hostility and violence against non-Wahhabi Muslims, they maintain a policy of alliance with Western military powers — first Britain, then the U.S. and France — to assure their control over the Arabian Peninsula.
At the present time, Shia and other non-Wahhabi Muslim community leaders estimate that 80 percent of American mosques are under Wahhabi control. This does not mean 80 percent of American Muslims support Wahhabism, although the main Wahhabi ideological agency in America, the so-called Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has claimed that some 70 percent of American Muslims want Wahhabi teaching in their mosques.1This is a claim we consider unfounded.
Rather, Wahhabi control over mosques means control of property, buildings, appointment of imams, training of imams, content of preaching — including faxing of Friday sermons from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — and of literature distributed in mosques and mosque bookstores, notices on bulletin boards, and organizational solicitation. Similar influence extends to prison and military chaplaincies, Islamic elementary and secondary schools (academies), college campus activity, endowment of academic chairs and programs in Middle East studies, and most notoriously, charities ostensibly helping Muslims abroad, many of which have been linked to or designated as sponsors of terrorism.
The main organizations that have carried out this campaign are the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which originated in the Muslim Students' Association of the U.S. and Canada (MSA), and CAIR. Support activities have been provided by the American Muslim Council (AMC), the American Muslim Alliance (AMA), the Muslim American Society (MAS), the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, its sister body the International Institute of Islamic Thought, and a number of related groups that I have called "the Wahhabi lobby." ISNA operates at least 324 mosques in the U.S. through the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT). These groups operate as an interlocking directorate.
Both ISNA and CAIR, in particular, maintain open and close relations with the Saudi government — a unique situation, in that no other foreign government directly uses religion as a cover for its political activities in the U.S. For example, notwithstanding support by the American Jewish community for the state of Israel, the government of Israel does not intervene in synagogue life or the activities of rabbinical or related religious bodies in America.
According to saudiembassy.net, the official website of the Saudi government, CAIR received $250,000 from the Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank, an official Saudi financial institution, in 1999, for the purchase of land in Washington, D.C., to construct a headquarters facility.2
In a particularly disturbing case, the Islamic Development Bank also granted US$295,000 to the Masjid Bilal Islamic Center, for the construction of the Bilal Islamic Primary and Secondary School in California, in 1999.3 Hassan Akbar, an American Muslim presently charged with a fatal attack on his fellow soldiers in Kuwait during the Iraq intervention, was affiliated with this institution.
In addition, the previously mentioned official website of the Saudi government reported a donation in 1995 of $4 million for the construction of a mosque complex in Los Angeles, named for Ibn Taymiyyah, a historic Islamic figure considered the forerunner of Wahhabism.4 (It should be noted that Ibn Taymiyyah is viewed as a marginal, extremist, ideological personality by many traditional Muslims. In the wake of the Riyadh bombings of 2003, the figure of Ibn Taymiyyah symbolized, in Saudi public discourse, the inner rot of the regime. An article in the reformist daily al-Watan was headlined, "Who is More Important? The Nation or Ibn Taymiyyah"? Soon after it appeared, Jamal Khashoggi, editor of al-Watan and former deputy editor of Arab News, was dismissed from his post.)
The same official Saudi website reported a donation of $6 million, also in 1995, for a mosque in Cincinnati, Ohio.5 The website further stated, in 2000, "In the United States, the Kingdom has contributed to the establishment of the Islamic Center in Washington DC; the Omer Bin Al-Khattab Mosque in western Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Islamic Center, and the Fresno Mosque in California; the Islamic Center in Denver, Colorado; the Islamic center in Harrison, New York City; and the Islamic Center in Northern Virginia."6
How much money, in total, is involved in this effort? If we accept a low figure of control, i.e. NAIT ownership of 27 percent of 1,200 mosques, stated by CAIR and cited by Mary Jacoby and Graham Brink in the St. Petersburg Times,7 we have some 324 mosques.
If we assume a relatively low average of expenditures, e.g. $.5 million per mosque, we arrive at $162 million.
But given that Saudi official sources show $6 million in Cincinnati and $4 million in Los Angeles, we should probably raise the average to $1 million per mosque, resulting in $324 million as a minimum.
Our view is that the number of mosques under Wahhabi control actually totals at least 600 out of the official total of 1,200, while, as noted, Shia community leaders endorse the figure of 80 percent Wahhabi control. But we also offer a number of 4-6,000 mosques overall, including small and diverse congregations of many kinds.
A radical critic of Wahhabism stated some years ago that $25m had been spent on Islamic Centers in the U.S. by the Saudi authorities. This now seems a low figure. Another anti-extremist Islamic figure has estimated Saudi expenses in the U.S., over 30 years, and including schools and free books as well as mosques, near a billion dollars.
It should also be noted that Wahhabi mosques in the U.S. work in close coordination with the Muslim World League (MWL) and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), Saudi state entities identified as participants in the funding of al Qaeda.
Wahhabi ideological control within Saudi Arabia is based on the historic compact of intermarriage between the family of the sect's originator, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, and the family of the founding ruler, Ibn Saud. To this day, these families divide governance of the kingdom, with the descendants of Ibn al-Wahhab, known as ahl al-Shaykh, responsible for religious life, and the Saudi royal family, or ahl al-Saud, running the state. The two families also continue to marry their descendants to one another. The supreme religious leader of Saudi Arabia is a member of the family of Ibn al-Wahhab. The state appoints a minister of religious affairs who controls such bodies as MWL and WAMY, and upon leaving his ministerial post he becomes head of MWL.
The official Saudi-embassy website reported exactly one year ago, on June 26, 2002, "The delegation of the Muslim World League (MWL) that is on a world tour promoting goodwill arrived in New York yesterday, and visited the Islamic Center there." The same website later reported, on July 8, 2002, "During a visit on Friday evening to the headquarters of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) [Secretary-General of the MWL Dr. Abdullah bin Abdulmohsin Al-Turki] advocated coordination among Muslim organizations in the United States. Expressing MWL's readiness to offer assistance in the promotion and coordination of Islamic works, he announced plans to set up a commission for this purpose. The MWL delegation also visited the Islamic Center in Washington DC and was briefed on its activities by its director Dr. Abdullah bin Mohammad Fowaj."8
In a related matter, on June 22, 2003, in a letter to the New York Post, James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, a civic lobbying organization, stated that his attendance at a press conference of WAMY in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, had been organized by the U.S. embassy in the kingdom. If this is true, it is extremely alarming. The U.S. embassy should not act as a supporter of WAMY, which, as documented by FDD and the Saudi Institute,9 teaches that Shia Muslims, including even the followers of Ayatollah Khomeini, are Jewish agents.
This is comparable to Nazi claims that Jewish business owners were Communists, or Slobodan Miloševic's charge, in the media of ex-Yugoslavia, that Tito was an agent of the Vatican. The aim is to derange people, to separate them from reality completely, in preparation for massacres. We fear that official Saudi anxiety their large and restive Shia minority, aggravated by Saudi resentment over the emergence of a protodemocratic regime in Iraq led by Shias, and consolidation of popular sovereignty in Shia Iran, may lead the Saudi regime to treat Shias as a convenient scapegoat, making them victims of a wholesale atrocity. The history of Wahhabism is filled with mass murder of Shia Muslims.
There is clearly a problem of Wahhabi/Saudi extremist influence in American Islam. The time is now to face the problem squarely and find ways to enable and support traditional, mainstream American Muslims in taking their community back from these extremists, while employing law enforcement to interdict the growth of Wahhabism and its financial support by the Saudis. If we fail to do this, Wahhabi extremism continues to endanger the whole world — Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Thank you for your attention.
NOTES
1 Council on American Islamic Relations, The Mosque in America: A National Portrait, A Report from the Mosque Study Project, April 26, 2001.
2 Saudi Embassy Press Archive, August 15, 1999.
3 Islamic Development Bank; also, "IDB Allocates $202 Mln to Finance Islamic Development Ventures," Arabic News, 1/25/2000.
4 Saudi Embassy Press Archive, July 8, 1995.
5 Saudi Embassy Press Archive, November 10, 1995.
6 Saudi Embassy Press Archive, March 5, 2000.
7 "Saudi Form of Islam Wars With Moderates," St. Petersburg Times, March 11, 2003.
8 Saudi Embassy Press Archive.
9 Ali al-Ahmed and Stephen Schwartz, "Saudis Spread Hate Speech in U.S," Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Washington, copublished with Saudi Institute.
— Stephen Schwartz is director, Islam and Democracy Program at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-schwartz063003.asp
World Assembly of Muslim Youth -WAMY - a template for new UK terror groups
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2480
World Assembly of Muslim Youth -WAMY - a template for new UK terror groups
October 21, 2006
World Assembly of Muslim Youth - WAMY - Operation Fits New UK Terror Model
http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=wamy102006%2Ehtm
By Beila Rabinowitz - Director MilitantIslamMonitor.org & William A. Mayer - E&P PipeLineNews.org
October 20, 2006 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Indicating the more serious nature of America's approach to Islamist terror, WAMY's U.S. operations - as opposed to those centered in the UK - have been shut down.
As a result, Britain is now facing the consequences of enabling Islamists.
In 2004 the offices of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth in Virginia were raided by 50 agents from the FBI and affiliated law enforcement agencies. WAMY's Falls Church Virginia offices had been incorporated in 1992 by Osama bin-Laden's nephew Abdullah.
When the branch moved to Alexandria, VA, Abdullah bin-Laden was listed as president and was so through 2002. Bin-Laden's name continued to appear on WAMY's tax forms until 1998.
WAMY publications have singled out for admiration, terrorists who attacked Israelis. One in particular lists a man who drove 14 bus passengers off a cliff as a member of the "Heroes from Palestine."
According to a Washington Post June 2, 2004 article, a federal affidavit alleges that WAMY has ties to Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group.
After the raid WAMY issued a statement cynically comparing themselves to the YMCA, saying their focus was on "youth education, youth development and serving the Muslim community."
This is exactly the model that has alarmingly been employed in the UK, as detailed in our piece UK In Mortal Danger As Al-Qaeda Sleeper Cells Proliferate, which finds that al-Qaeda has seized upon a "youth group" model that seeks to identify and inculcate into the terror process impressionable young people.
The shutting down of WAMY's Virginia operations as a terror enterprise, has not hindered its proliferation overseas, according to their website:
"WAMY is the first 'International Islamic Organisation' dealing specially with youth affairs embracing over 450 Islamic youth/ students organization in the five continents."
Though funded by the Wahhabists and based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia WAMY is flourishing in the UK where it still legally operates. Its London offices are located in the heart of the city where they pursue an "Islamic [read Islamist] Future." also the name of their monthly magazine.
Regarding the July 7, 2005 London terror bombing plot, the UK's counter terrorism establishment views Mohammed Siddique Khan as the dominant senior planner.
Khan a Pakistani, was employed as a primary school teacher for four years in a London suburb [Beeston] and using the newly discovered and above referenced "youth model" template, he identified, mentored and cultivated the three younger men in his terror cell. He also served as a go-between, providing liaison services between the UK and al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan.
Khan therefore used his father figure status among the disenfranchised to seek, identify, radicalize and ultimately manipulate susceptible Muslim youth with the purpose of building the terrorist network which resulted in the death of 56 and the wounding of over 700 Londoners.
Given WAMY's proven ties to al-Qaeda [a direct link to bin-Laden's nephew], its Islamist philosophy and long history of supporting violence and "martyrdom," one must view as extremely suspect its entire youth based facade.
We see WAMY as a clear and present danger to the West and therefore recommend shutting it down immediately. At the same time its ties to the international Islamist terror network must be pursued and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
©1999-2006 Beila Rabinowitz, William A. Mayer/PipeLineNews.org, all rights reserved.
http://www.infoyouth.org/cd_rmed/English/mengo/wamy.htm#i
Contact Information:
Mail Address: Riyadh 11443
Tel: (966) 1/4641669
Fax: (966) 1/4641710
E-Mail: info@wamy.org
Website: www.wamy.org
P.O. Box: P.O. Box 10845
Category of Organization: Independent international organization
Country of Origin: Saudi Arabia
Founded In: 1972
Brief History of Organization
The World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) is an independent international organization and an Islamic forum that supports the work of Muslim organizations and needy communities the world over. WAMY's headquarters are based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. WAMY has regional as well various branches in and outside Saudi Arabia. Established in 1972, it has presence in 55 countries and an associate membership of over 500 youth organizations around the world.
WAMY is a member of the United Nations NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations), and recognized for its vast scope of humanitarian and relief work that encompasses about 60% of the Muslim World
Objectives
To preserve the identity of Muslim youth and help overcome the problems they face in modern society.
To educate and train them in order to become active an positive citizens in their countries.
To introduce Islam to non-Muslims in its purest form as a comprehensive system and a way of life.
To assist Muslim organizations all over the world through training, communication and cooperation.
Establish a relationship of dialogue, understanding and coordination between Muslim organizations, the western societies and beyond.
Affiliates
Affiliate: United Nations
Type of relation: Member of the United Nations
Methods of Communication
Newsletter
Websites
Electronic Forums
Emails
Regular post
Activities
Holding international, regional, and local Muslim youth and student camps.
Scouting
Help establish Muslim scout groups where possible and coordinate with the scout associations in various countries of the world to encourage the Muslim youth to benefit fromthe programs and activities offered in scouting
Organizing conferences, symposia, and research circles
To address youth issues
Football Tournaments
Sports events are among the best means to entertain, educate and attract Muslim youth.
Programs
Humanitarian and Educational project
Establish humanitarian and educational projects for the benefit of the needy Muslim
communities in various countries (like building hospitals and schools, orphans' sponsorship,
development projects, building mosques, digging wells etc.)
Exchange programs
Organizing exchange visits, Hajj & Umra trips for the Muslim around the World
Publications:
Discover Islam Leaflets
Magazines and newsletters
Expose WAMY's work and achievements around the world
Brochures and exhibition material
To introduce Islam to non-Muslims in it's holistic vision
Publications can be ordered from WAMY's Headoffice in Riyadh or our Western Europe office
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2480
World Assembly of Muslim Youth -WAMY - a template for new UK terror groups
October 21, 2006
World Assembly of Muslim Youth - WAMY - Operation Fits New UK Terror Model
http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=wamy102006%2Ehtm
By Beila Rabinowitz - Director MilitantIslamMonitor.org & William A. Mayer - E&P PipeLineNews.org
October 20, 2006 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Indicating the more serious nature of America's approach to Islamist terror, WAMY's U.S. operations - as opposed to those centered in the UK - have been shut down.
As a result, Britain is now facing the consequences of enabling Islamists.
In 2004 the offices of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth in Virginia were raided by 50 agents from the FBI and affiliated law enforcement agencies. WAMY's Falls Church Virginia offices had been incorporated in 1992 by Osama bin-Laden's nephew Abdullah.
When the branch moved to Alexandria, VA, Abdullah bin-Laden was listed as president and was so through 2002. Bin-Laden's name continued to appear on WAMY's tax forms until 1998.
WAMY publications have singled out for admiration, terrorists who attacked Israelis. One in particular lists a man who drove 14 bus passengers off a cliff as a member of the "Heroes from Palestine."
According to a Washington Post June 2, 2004 article, a federal affidavit alleges that WAMY has ties to Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group.
After the raid WAMY issued a statement cynically comparing themselves to the YMCA, saying their focus was on "youth education, youth development and serving the Muslim community."
This is exactly the model that has alarmingly been employed in the UK, as detailed in our piece UK In Mortal Danger As Al-Qaeda Sleeper Cells Proliferate, which finds that al-Qaeda has seized upon a "youth group" model that seeks to identify and inculcate into the terror process impressionable young people.
The shutting down of WAMY's Virginia operations as a terror enterprise, has not hindered its proliferation overseas, according to their website:
"WAMY is the first 'International Islamic Organisation' dealing specially with youth affairs embracing over 450 Islamic youth/ students organization in the five continents."
Though funded by the Wahhabists and based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia WAMY is flourishing in the UK where it still legally operates. Its London offices are located in the heart of the city where they pursue an "Islamic [read Islamist] Future." also the name of their monthly magazine.
Regarding the July 7, 2005 London terror bombing plot, the UK's counter terrorism establishment views Mohammed Siddique Khan as the dominant senior planner.
Khan a Pakistani, was employed as a primary school teacher for four years in a London suburb [Beeston] and using the newly discovered and above referenced "youth model" template, he identified, mentored and cultivated the three younger men in his terror cell. He also served as a go-between, providing liaison services between the UK and al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan.
Khan therefore used his father figure status among the disenfranchised to seek, identify, radicalize and ultimately manipulate susceptible Muslim youth with the purpose of building the terrorist network which resulted in the death of 56 and the wounding of over 700 Londoners.
Given WAMY's proven ties to al-Qaeda [a direct link to bin-Laden's nephew], its Islamist philosophy and long history of supporting violence and "martyrdom," one must view as extremely suspect its entire youth based facade.
We see WAMY as a clear and present danger to the West and therefore recommend shutting it down immediately. At the same time its ties to the international Islamist terror network must be pursued and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
©1999-2006 Beila Rabinowitz, William A. Mayer/PipeLineNews.org, all rights reserved.
http://www.infoyouth.org/cd_rmed/English/mengo/wamy.htm#i
Contact Information:
Mail Address: Riyadh 11443
Tel: (966) 1/4641669
Fax: (966) 1/4641710
E-Mail: info@wamy.org
Website: www.wamy.org
P.O. Box: P.O. Box 10845
Category of Organization: Independent international organization
Country of Origin: Saudi Arabia
Founded In: 1972
Brief History of Organization
The World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) is an independent international organization and an Islamic forum that supports the work of Muslim organizations and needy communities the world over. WAMY's headquarters are based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. WAMY has regional as well various branches in and outside Saudi Arabia. Established in 1972, it has presence in 55 countries and an associate membership of over 500 youth organizations around the world.
WAMY is a member of the United Nations NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations), and recognized for its vast scope of humanitarian and relief work that encompasses about 60% of the Muslim World
Objectives
To preserve the identity of Muslim youth and help overcome the problems they face in modern society.
To educate and train them in order to become active an positive citizens in their countries.
To introduce Islam to non-Muslims in its purest form as a comprehensive system and a way of life.
To assist Muslim organizations all over the world through training, communication and cooperation.
Establish a relationship of dialogue, understanding and coordination between Muslim organizations, the western societies and beyond.
Affiliates
Affiliate: United Nations
Type of relation: Member of the United Nations
Methods of Communication
Newsletter
Websites
Electronic Forums
Emails
Regular post
Activities
Holding international, regional, and local Muslim youth and student camps.
Scouting
Help establish Muslim scout groups where possible and coordinate with the scout associations in various countries of the world to encourage the Muslim youth to benefit fromthe programs and activities offered in scouting
Organizing conferences, symposia, and research circles
To address youth issues
Football Tournaments
Sports events are among the best means to entertain, educate and attract Muslim youth.
Programs
Humanitarian and Educational project
Establish humanitarian and educational projects for the benefit of the needy Muslim
communities in various countries (like building hospitals and schools, orphans' sponsorship,
development projects, building mosques, digging wells etc.)
Exchange programs
Organizing exchange visits, Hajj & Umra trips for the Muslim around the World
Publications:
Discover Islam Leaflets
Magazines and newsletters
Expose WAMY's work and achievements around the world
Brochures and exhibition material
To introduce Islam to non-Muslims in it's holistic vision
Publications can be ordered from WAMY's Headoffice in Riyadh or our Western Europe office
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2480
ANWAR IBRAHIM LINKS TO WORLD ASSEMBLY OF MUSLIM YOUTH (WAMY)-A TERRORIST ORGANISATION
www.DiscoverTheNetwork.org Date: 3/21/2008 7:48:09 AM
WORLD ASSEMBLY OF MUSLIM YOUTH (WAMY)
P.O. Box 10845
Riyadh 11443
Saudi Arabia
Phone :966 14641669
URL :http://www.wamy.co.uk/
-Saudi-based Islamic organization with chapters in 55 countries
-Founded by Osama bin Laden's nephew
-Holds conferences and distributes literature promoting jihad and anti-Semitism
-Raises funds for Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas
-Has been linked to both the 9/11 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing
A non-governmental youth and student group affiliated with the United Nations, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) was founded in 1972. It defines itself as "an independent organization and Islamic forum that supports the work of Muslim organizations and needy communities the world over." While WAMY's international headquarters are located in Saudi Arabia, the organization also maintains satellite chapters in 55 additional countries and is affiliated with some 500 other Muslim youth groups on five continents.
Specifically, WAMY aims to achieve the following: "Preserve the identity of Muslim youth and help overcome the problems they face in modern society"; "educate and train them in order for them to become active and positive citizens in their countries"; "introduce Islam to non-Muslims in its purest form as a comprehensive system and way of life"; "establish a relationship of dialogue, understanding and appreciation between Muslim organizations and the western societies"; and "provide assistance to Muslim and non-Muslim organizations to fulfil [sic] these goals through training and cooperation."
Toward these ends, WAMY holds regional and local Muslim youth and student camps; helps to establish Muslim scout groups; organizes conferences, symposia, workshops and research circles "to address youth and students issues"; publishes books, brochures, reports, and exhibition material "that best introduce Islam to non-Muslims in its holistic vision"; organizes exchange visits, Hajj and Umra trips; and provides training and support to Muslim youth organizations around the world. These activities have earned WAMY the designation of "humanitarian and relief-works organization" from the United Nations.
The World Assembly of Muslim Youth is also one of the vehicles through which the Saudi Wahhabi government funds Islamic extremism and international terrorism. WAMY was co-founded by Kamal Helwabi, a former senior member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and by Osama bin Laden's nephew, Abdullah bin Laden (who served as WAMY's President through 2002 and is now its Treasurer). WAMY raises funds for the terrorist group Hamas, and in October 2002 made Hamas leader Khaled Mash'al an "honored guest" at a Muslim youth and globalization conference held in Riyadh. WAMY also helps finance the Kashmir insurgency against India, characterizing it as a "liberation" movement.
A Saudi opposition group reports that WAMY disseminates literature encouraging "religious hatred and violence against Jews, Christians, Shi'a and Ashaari Muslims." As WAMY puts it, this literature is expressly designed "to teach our children to love taking revenge on the Jews and the oppressors, and teach them that our youngsters will liberate Palestine and Jerusalem when they go back to Islam and make jihad for the sake of Allah." Some WAMY publications have included interviews with Saudi clerics such as Ayed al-Qarni, an adviser to Saudi Prince Fahd. In one such interview, al-Qarni stated that he prays for America's destruction daily, that he encourages students to go to Iraq to fight against U.S. forces, and that those who cannot go should at least contribute money to the cause. Another WAMY publication features a list of "martyrs" who have attacked and murdered Israelis; one of the individuals on this list is a man who drove 14 bus passengers off a cliff as a member of the group "Heroes from Palestine."
Investigations of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center uncovered, in an apartment of one of the terrorists, an envelope marked "WAMY" along with a training manual on how to set up terrorist cells in other countries and stage attacks.
WAMY came under FBI scrutiny after 9/11, when it was determined that a radiologist, Dr. Al Badr al-Hamzi, whose credit card was found among the possessions of the hijackers, was receiving funding from the organization. The Senate Finance Committee requested that the IRS examine WAMY's U.S. branch for links to terrorism. WAMY was also named in a trillion-dollar lawsuit by the families of the victims of 9/11.
In May 2004, federal law-enforcement, immigration, and anti-terrorism agents raided WAMY's Alexandria, Virginia office, seizing all of its computers and hard drives, and arresting a volunteer board member, Ibrahim Abdullah, on immigration charges. WAMY had been operating out of the office of Jamal Barzinji, who was involved with a total of seven organizations that were raided by federal agents in connection with terrorist financing. After the raid on its office, WAMY likened itself to the YMCA, saying that it was interested only in "youth education, youth development, and serving the Muslim community."
Though WAMY's activities in the United States were derailed, its operations elsewhere in the world continue unabated -- in many instances with the help of other, likeminded organizations. For example, WAMY's efforts in Somalia are supported by the "Christian charities" Novib and Oxfam, which are based in the United Kingdom and Holland, respectively.
One of WAMY's closest affiliates is the European Council for Fatwa and Research, which aims to spread fundamentalist Islam and implement Shari'a (Islamic Law) worldwide. Another organization with intimate ties to WAMY is the Muslim Students' Association of the U.S. and Canada. And four directors of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) -- including Anwar Ibrahim, a terror-supporting Malaysian Islamist who co-founded IIIT -- are trustees of WAMY.
In December 1999, WAMY announced at a press conference in Saudi Arabia that it "was extending both moral and financial support to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) "to help it construct its $3.5 million headquarters in Washington, D.C." WAMY also agreed to "introduce CAIR to Saudi philanthropists and recommend their financial support for the headquarters project." In 2002, CAIR and WAMY jointly announced, again from Saudi Arabia, their collaboration on a $1 million public-relations campaign.
Islam scholar Stephen Schwartz calls WAMY "the Saudi equivalent of the Hitler Youth: a hate-mongering, ultra-extremist group preaching, among other niceties, that Shia Muslims are not real Muslims, but products of a Jewish conspiracy." The website Militant Islam Monitor characterizes the organization as "part of the Saudi Wahhabist 'Jihad through conversion' drive."
WORLD ASSEMBLY OF MUSLIM YOUTH (WAMY)
P.O. Box 10845
Riyadh 11443
Saudi Arabia
Phone :966 14641669
URL :http://www.wamy.co.uk/
-Saudi-based Islamic organization with chapters in 55 countries
-Founded by Osama bin Laden's nephew
-Holds conferences and distributes literature promoting jihad and anti-Semitism
-Raises funds for Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas
-Has been linked to both the 9/11 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing
A non-governmental youth and student group affiliated with the United Nations, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) was founded in 1972. It defines itself as "an independent organization and Islamic forum that supports the work of Muslim organizations and needy communities the world over." While WAMY's international headquarters are located in Saudi Arabia, the organization also maintains satellite chapters in 55 additional countries and is affiliated with some 500 other Muslim youth groups on five continents.
Specifically, WAMY aims to achieve the following: "Preserve the identity of Muslim youth and help overcome the problems they face in modern society"; "educate and train them in order for them to become active and positive citizens in their countries"; "introduce Islam to non-Muslims in its purest form as a comprehensive system and way of life"; "establish a relationship of dialogue, understanding and appreciation between Muslim organizations and the western societies"; and "provide assistance to Muslim and non-Muslim organizations to fulfil [sic] these goals through training and cooperation."
Toward these ends, WAMY holds regional and local Muslim youth and student camps; helps to establish Muslim scout groups; organizes conferences, symposia, workshops and research circles "to address youth and students issues"; publishes books, brochures, reports, and exhibition material "that best introduce Islam to non-Muslims in its holistic vision"; organizes exchange visits, Hajj and Umra trips; and provides training and support to Muslim youth organizations around the world. These activities have earned WAMY the designation of "humanitarian and relief-works organization" from the United Nations.
The World Assembly of Muslim Youth is also one of the vehicles through which the Saudi Wahhabi government funds Islamic extremism and international terrorism. WAMY was co-founded by Kamal Helwabi, a former senior member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and by Osama bin Laden's nephew, Abdullah bin Laden (who served as WAMY's President through 2002 and is now its Treasurer). WAMY raises funds for the terrorist group Hamas, and in October 2002 made Hamas leader Khaled Mash'al an "honored guest" at a Muslim youth and globalization conference held in Riyadh. WAMY also helps finance the Kashmir insurgency against India, characterizing it as a "liberation" movement.
A Saudi opposition group reports that WAMY disseminates literature encouraging "religious hatred and violence against Jews, Christians, Shi'a and Ashaari Muslims." As WAMY puts it, this literature is expressly designed "to teach our children to love taking revenge on the Jews and the oppressors, and teach them that our youngsters will liberate Palestine and Jerusalem when they go back to Islam and make jihad for the sake of Allah." Some WAMY publications have included interviews with Saudi clerics such as Ayed al-Qarni, an adviser to Saudi Prince Fahd. In one such interview, al-Qarni stated that he prays for America's destruction daily, that he encourages students to go to Iraq to fight against U.S. forces, and that those who cannot go should at least contribute money to the cause. Another WAMY publication features a list of "martyrs" who have attacked and murdered Israelis; one of the individuals on this list is a man who drove 14 bus passengers off a cliff as a member of the group "Heroes from Palestine."
Investigations of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center uncovered, in an apartment of one of the terrorists, an envelope marked "WAMY" along with a training manual on how to set up terrorist cells in other countries and stage attacks.
WAMY came under FBI scrutiny after 9/11, when it was determined that a radiologist, Dr. Al Badr al-Hamzi, whose credit card was found among the possessions of the hijackers, was receiving funding from the organization. The Senate Finance Committee requested that the IRS examine WAMY's U.S. branch for links to terrorism. WAMY was also named in a trillion-dollar lawsuit by the families of the victims of 9/11.
In May 2004, federal law-enforcement, immigration, and anti-terrorism agents raided WAMY's Alexandria, Virginia office, seizing all of its computers and hard drives, and arresting a volunteer board member, Ibrahim Abdullah, on immigration charges. WAMY had been operating out of the office of Jamal Barzinji, who was involved with a total of seven organizations that were raided by federal agents in connection with terrorist financing. After the raid on its office, WAMY likened itself to the YMCA, saying that it was interested only in "youth education, youth development, and serving the Muslim community."
Though WAMY's activities in the United States were derailed, its operations elsewhere in the world continue unabated -- in many instances with the help of other, likeminded organizations. For example, WAMY's efforts in Somalia are supported by the "Christian charities" Novib and Oxfam, which are based in the United Kingdom and Holland, respectively.
One of WAMY's closest affiliates is the European Council for Fatwa and Research, which aims to spread fundamentalist Islam and implement Shari'a (Islamic Law) worldwide. Another organization with intimate ties to WAMY is the Muslim Students' Association of the U.S. and Canada. And four directors of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) -- including Anwar Ibrahim, a terror-supporting Malaysian Islamist who co-founded IIIT -- are trustees of WAMY.
In December 1999, WAMY announced at a press conference in Saudi Arabia that it "was extending both moral and financial support to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) "to help it construct its $3.5 million headquarters in Washington, D.C." WAMY also agreed to "introduce CAIR to Saudi philanthropists and recommend their financial support for the headquarters project." In 2002, CAIR and WAMY jointly announced, again from Saudi Arabia, their collaboration on a $1 million public-relations campaign.
Islam scholar Stephen Schwartz calls WAMY "the Saudi equivalent of the Hitler Youth: a hate-mongering, ultra-extremist group preaching, among other niceties, that Shia Muslims are not real Muslims, but products of a Jewish conspiracy." The website Militant Islam Monitor characterizes the organization as "part of the Saudi Wahhabist 'Jihad through conversion' drive."
Chilling Free Speech [incls. "Alms for Jihad," Khalid bin Mahfouz, Robert O. Collins, Cambridge University Press, Matthew Levitt]
Middle East studies in the News
Chilling Free Speech [incls. "Alms for Jihad," Khalid bin Mahfouz, Robert O. Collins, Cambridge University Press, Matthew Levitt]
by Ilan Weinglass
The Washington Times
October 19, 2007
http://washingtontimes.com/article/20071019/EDITORIAL/110190005/1013/editorial
The U.S. media has started to notice Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz's use of British libel laws to silence allegations that he funded al Qaeda. Even the venerable New York Times has featured an essay on the subject, plus an Op-Ed urging Congress to prevent U.S. courts from enforcing foreign libel judgments. While this would be a worthwhile achievement, most commentators have missed the point that we may have already lost the battle. More than 30 publications and authors have already given in to the billionaire. Since September 11, Mr. Mahfouz has exploited the British legal system, where libel laws favor the plaintiff, to systematically sue anyone alleging that he financed terrorism. He has also used the threat of such suits to intimidate his critics.A number of leading American publications including The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and USA Today have publicly retracted allegations made about Mr. Mahfouzon their pages. Most recently, Mr. Mahfouz threatened to sue Cambridge University Press (CUP) for publishing "Alms for Jihad." Overlooking its responsibility and academic integrity, CUP decided to avoid huge legal expenses. It apologized and pulped the book. While criticizing CUP for its capitulation, the American media failed to notice that the authors of the book were not even threatened. Why not? Because of what civil-rights lawyer Harvey Silverglate calls "one of the most important First Amendment cases in the past 25 years," now pending before the New York Court of Appeals.
This case involves Rachel Ehrenfeld, author of "Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It." Miss Ehrenfeld was also subject to a lawsuit by Mr. Mahfouz. But unlike the others, she refuses to acknowledge the jurisdiction of a British court over a book published in New York, and she asked a U.S. court to declare the British judgment unenforceable in the United States. After two years, a U.S. appeals court ruled that the New York Court of Appeals must hear her case. This is already a small victory for free speech, as Mr. Mahfouz will have to make his case in an American court.
This small victory pales next to some larger defeats, however. Mr. Mahfouz's Web site shows dozens of otherwise serious, careful scholars making abject apologies to the Saudi. A typical example, from a leading scholar of Al Qaeda: "I withdraw any allegations contained in the Book that you were a financial mainstay of Al Qaeda... I am happy to accept that you abhor terrorism and that you had no part or knowledge of any alleged transfer of funds to support terrorism."
Looking closely through publicly available scholarship on Mr. Mahfouz, it is doubtful one will find any terror-finance allegations that have not been explicitly retracted in such a manner, with the exception of those made by Miss Ehrenfeld. While all claims must be subject to rigorous investigation, this is disturbing, since the Treasury Department designated Yassin al-Qadi, the director of Mr. Mahfouz's "charitable" foundation, as a terrorist. Moreover, Treasury determined that a Mahfouz-owned bank sent $3 million to the same foundation,plus other "charities that serve as a front for bin Laden." We have lost valuable time in the battle against terror financiers regardless of the outcome of the Ehrenfeld case. As scholar Matthew Levitt writes, "such suits threaten to have a chilling effect on scholars conducting serious, careful, and peer-reviewed research into critical and sometimes contentious policy debates." While Mr. Levitt, who himself faced a libel suit in the United States that was rightly dismissed under U.S. libel laws, is correct in pointing out the "chilling effect" of such suits, the cold fact is that much damage has already been done.
Ultimately, we will never know how much damage The Washington Post or Wall Street Journal could have prevented if they stood up for their First Amendment rights. Whatever the outcome of Miss Ehrenfeld's case, it is a black mark on these publications that they chose the easy way out, while a lone brave woman is the only thing preventing a total blackout on research into a possible funding source of al Qaeda.
Ilan Weinglass is a counterterrorism consultant in New York City, and editor of the Terror Finance Blog. He was a research assistant for "Funding Evil."
Note: Articles listed under "Middle East studies in the News" provide information on current developments concerning Middle East studies on North American campuses. These reports do not necessarily reflect the views of Campus Watch and do not necessarily correspond to Campus Watch's critique.
Chilling Free Speech [incls. "Alms for Jihad," Khalid bin Mahfouz, Robert O. Collins, Cambridge University Press, Matthew Levitt]
by Ilan Weinglass
The Washington Times
October 19, 2007
http://washingtontimes.com/article/20071019/EDITORIAL/110190005/1013/editorial
The U.S. media has started to notice Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz's use of British libel laws to silence allegations that he funded al Qaeda. Even the venerable New York Times has featured an essay on the subject, plus an Op-Ed urging Congress to prevent U.S. courts from enforcing foreign libel judgments. While this would be a worthwhile achievement, most commentators have missed the point that we may have already lost the battle. More than 30 publications and authors have already given in to the billionaire. Since September 11, Mr. Mahfouz has exploited the British legal system, where libel laws favor the plaintiff, to systematically sue anyone alleging that he financed terrorism. He has also used the threat of such suits to intimidate his critics.A number of leading American publications including The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and USA Today have publicly retracted allegations made about Mr. Mahfouzon their pages. Most recently, Mr. Mahfouz threatened to sue Cambridge University Press (CUP) for publishing "Alms for Jihad." Overlooking its responsibility and academic integrity, CUP decided to avoid huge legal expenses. It apologized and pulped the book. While criticizing CUP for its capitulation, the American media failed to notice that the authors of the book were not even threatened. Why not? Because of what civil-rights lawyer Harvey Silverglate calls "one of the most important First Amendment cases in the past 25 years," now pending before the New York Court of Appeals.
This case involves Rachel Ehrenfeld, author of "Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It." Miss Ehrenfeld was also subject to a lawsuit by Mr. Mahfouz. But unlike the others, she refuses to acknowledge the jurisdiction of a British court over a book published in New York, and she asked a U.S. court to declare the British judgment unenforceable in the United States. After two years, a U.S. appeals court ruled that the New York Court of Appeals must hear her case. This is already a small victory for free speech, as Mr. Mahfouz will have to make his case in an American court.
This small victory pales next to some larger defeats, however. Mr. Mahfouz's Web site shows dozens of otherwise serious, careful scholars making abject apologies to the Saudi. A typical example, from a leading scholar of Al Qaeda: "I withdraw any allegations contained in the Book that you were a financial mainstay of Al Qaeda... I am happy to accept that you abhor terrorism and that you had no part or knowledge of any alleged transfer of funds to support terrorism."
Looking closely through publicly available scholarship on Mr. Mahfouz, it is doubtful one will find any terror-finance allegations that have not been explicitly retracted in such a manner, with the exception of those made by Miss Ehrenfeld. While all claims must be subject to rigorous investigation, this is disturbing, since the Treasury Department designated Yassin al-Qadi, the director of Mr. Mahfouz's "charitable" foundation, as a terrorist. Moreover, Treasury determined that a Mahfouz-owned bank sent $3 million to the same foundation,plus other "charities that serve as a front for bin Laden." We have lost valuable time in the battle against terror financiers regardless of the outcome of the Ehrenfeld case. As scholar Matthew Levitt writes, "such suits threaten to have a chilling effect on scholars conducting serious, careful, and peer-reviewed research into critical and sometimes contentious policy debates." While Mr. Levitt, who himself faced a libel suit in the United States that was rightly dismissed under U.S. libel laws, is correct in pointing out the "chilling effect" of such suits, the cold fact is that much damage has already been done.
Ultimately, we will never know how much damage The Washington Post or Wall Street Journal could have prevented if they stood up for their First Amendment rights. Whatever the outcome of Miss Ehrenfeld's case, it is a black mark on these publications that they chose the easy way out, while a lone brave woman is the only thing preventing a total blackout on research into a possible funding source of al Qaeda.
Ilan Weinglass is a counterterrorism consultant in New York City, and editor of the Terror Finance Blog. He was a research assistant for "Funding Evil."
Note: Articles listed under "Middle East studies in the News" provide information on current developments concerning Middle East studies on North American campuses. These reports do not necessarily reflect the views of Campus Watch and do not necessarily correspond to Campus Watch's critique.
The history of Al Qaeda
washingtonpost.com
In Search Of Friends Among The Foes
U.S. Hopes to Work With Diverse Group
By John Mintz and Douglas Farah
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, September 11, 2004; Page A01
When U.S. immigration officers in New York City whisked away Ishaq Farhan as he stepped off an incoming international flight in May 2000, his Jordanian diplomatic passport was no help to him. Federal agents questioned him for hours before barring his entry into the country. Then they made him pay for the flight back to Jordan.
The U.S. Embassy in Jordan lost no time making amends to Farhan, a leading opposition politician who has been closely affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide movement opposed to Western influences. A State Department official visited his home, issued him an immediate visa and passed on the United States' "deep regret for the difficulties Dr. Farhan experienced."
The episode demonstrates the U.S. government's dilemma. Some federal agents worry that the Muslim Brotherhood has dangerous links to terrorism. But some U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials believe its influence offers an opportunity for political engagement that could help isolate violent jihadists.
"It is the preeminent movement in the Muslim world," said Graham E. Fuller, a former CIA official specializing in the Middle East. "It's something we can work with." Demonizing the Brotherhood "would be foolhardy in the extreme," he warned.
The Brotherhood's history and the challenges it poses to U.S. officials illustrate the complexity of the political front in the campaign against terrorism three years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. FBI agents and financial investigators probe the group for terrorist ties and legal violations, while diplomats simultaneously discuss strategies for co-opting at least its moderate wings. In both sectors of the U.S. government, the Brotherhood often remains a mystery.
The Brotherhood -- or al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, as it is known in Arabic -- is a sprawling and secretive society with followers in more than 70 countries. It is dedicated to creating an Islamic civilization that harks back to the caliphates of the 7th and 8th centuries, one that would segregate women from public life and scorn nonbelievers.
In some nations -- Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Sudan -- the Brotherhood has fomented Islamic revolution. In the Palestinian territories, the Brotherhood created the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, which has become known for its suicide bombings of Israelis. Yet it is also a sophisticated and diverse organization that appeals to many Muslims worldwide and sometimes advocates peaceful persuasion, not violent revolt. Some of its supporters went on to help found al Qaeda, while others launched one of the largest college student groups in the United States.
For decades, the Brotherhood enjoyed the support of the government of Saudi Arabia and its oil billions, which helped the group expand in the United States.
Past and present Muslim Brotherhood supporters make up the U.S. Islamic community's most organized force. They run hundreds of mosques and dozens of businesses engaging in ventures such as real estate development and banking. They also helped set up some of the leading American Islamic organizations that defend the rights of Muslims, promote Muslim civic activism and seek to spread Islam.
For years federal agents paid little heed to the Brotherhood, but after Sept. 11 they noticed that many leads went back to the Brotherhood. "We see some sort of nexus, direct or indirect, to the Brotherhood, in ongoing cases," said Dennis Lormel, until recently a top FBI counterterrorism official.
The architect of the Sept. 11 strikes, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, told U.S. interrogators that he was drawn to violent jihad after joining the Brotherhood in Kuwait at age 16 and attending its desert youth camps, according to the report released in July by the national commission that investigated the attacks.
Brotherhood radicals in Germany and Spain are suspected of organizing logistical support for the al Qaeda cell that carried out the attacks. Western governments subsequently shut down a huge banking network in Switzerland, Liechtenstein and the Bahamas that was set up by a leading Brotherhood figure, citing its numerous financial ties to al Qaeda and other terrorists. The founder, Youssef Nada, denies wrongdoing.
In March 2002, federal agents in Northern Virginia raided a cluster of Muslim think tanks, companies and foundations run mostly by men who sympathized with the Brotherhood in Iraq and elsewhere in the 1960s. No charges have resulted, but U.S. officials stated in court earlier this year that they are pursuing terrorist financing allegations. Members of the group, known for their relative political moderation, say they ended Brotherhood ties years ago and deny wrongdoing.
In a 42-count indictment in July, the government alleged that an Islamic charity, the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, funneled $12.4 million to a designated terrorist group, Hamas. The indictment said the Holy Land Foundation was "deeply involved with a network of Muslim Brotherhood organizations dedicated to furthering the Islamic fundamentalist agenda espoused by Hamas." The Holy Land Foundation denies wrongdoing.
The indictment alleges that the Holy Land Foundation and its Brotherhood allies performed services for Hamas -- fundraising, banking, producing videos and distributing literature. The Brotherhood network, according to the indictment, also hosted conferences -- featuring Hamas officials and radical sheiks -- that glorified extremism and included "violent dramatic skits depicting the killing of Jewish people." But the Brotherhood was not charged with any crimes.
One alleged Brotherhood figure is Soliman S. Biheiri, a Northern Virginia finance company executive convicted last year of lying to obtain U.S. citizenship. Biheiri, who federal documents say invested money for years in this country for Hamas officials, is "the Muslim Brotherhood's financial toehold in the U.S.," federal prosecutor Steven Ward said last year in court.
For law enforcement, the Brotherhood remains a worrisome enigma.
"The complication is they are a political movement, an economic cadre and in some cases terrorist supporters," said Juan Zarate, chief of the Treasury Department's terrorist finance unit. "They operate business empires in the Western world, but their philosophy and ultimate objectives are radical Islamist goals that in many ways are antithetical to our interests. They have one foot in our world and one foot in a world hostile to us. How to decipher what is good, bad or suspect is a severe complication."
Until recently "there wasn't a recognition of the logistical and financial ties to terrorism through the Muslim Brotherhood," Zarate added.
A senior U.S. law enforcement official said the FBI studied the Brotherhood -- or the Ikhwan -- from afar for a decade, but "we are more actively aware of them now." One worrisome feature of the network, he said, is the secret bond among Brotherhood activists. "We are very interested in relations among people and entities," he said. "People know each other for 20 years and will do anything for them because they are all 'brothers.' "
The Brotherhood has been connected to many Islamic extremists worldwide. Two Egyptian Brotherhood members went on to found split-off terrorist groups: Ayman Zawahiri, now Osama bin Laden's deputy, and blind sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who was convicted in 1995 of plotting to blow up New York landmarks.
One top movement leader is Nada, who was jailed in Egypt in the 1950s for Brotherhood activities. He later became wealthy selling construction materials in Saudi Arabia, where he was called the "cement king," and now lives in a sprawling Italian villa.
With "significant backing from the Muslim Brotherhood," Nada set up a complex global banking network in the 1980s, the Treasury Department said when it recently designated Nada and two other Brotherhood officials as terrorist financiers. U.S. and European officials say the network has funded al Qaeda, Hamas and Algeria's Armed Islamic Group -- assertions that Nada denies. Although the network was supposedly shut down, U.S. and European officials say they still find Nada moving funds under new corporate names.
One of Nada's key aides has been a Holocaust revisionist from Switzerland, Ahmed Huber -- one of many neo-Nazis who helped the Ikhwan set up its financial structure.
Muslim activists who know current and former Brotherhood sympathizers in this country say bitter opposition to Israel is a key part of Brotherhood beliefs. Law enforcement sources say hundreds of current and former Ikhwan supporters nationwide are under federal investigation for alleged financial support of Hamas and other Palestinian groups deemed terrorists by the U.S. government.
But some Brotherhood experts say most wings of the movement are moderate and no threat to the United States. Ahmad Sakr, who has known Brotherhood activists in his native Lebanon and in this country, said U.S. officials are "100 percent wrong" to treat the Ikhwan with suspicion.
"They're not military men or terrorists," said Sakr, a Muslim activist in California. "They're educated and contribute to the success of America. The Muslim Brothers want to practice Islam in their families and in themselves, to show Islam is for every human being. . . . I never saw humble people like them. They give everything for the honor of God."
The Saudi Connection
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by a 22-year-old schoolteacher named Hassan Banna in his house in the Egyptian city of Ismailiyya. Banna railed against the colonial powers' humiliation of Muslims, and preached that governments should be ruled by Islamic law, or sharia.
Members swore obedience to Banna, pledging iron discipline and secrecy. They were organized into tiers of membership, with some forming a covert military wing to confront the Cairo regime.
As the Ikhwan's following grew to half a million, Banna was assassinated by Egyptian officials in 1949. Five years later, after Brotherhood members fired shots at Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, thousands of Ikhwanis were imprisoned, shattering the organization. Hundreds more were jailed in Syria and Iraq. Another Brotherhood leader, Sayyid Qutb, who advocated militant jihad against nonbelievers and revolution against impure Muslim states, was hanged by Egypt in 1966. Qutb's books would later provide the philosophical underpinning for jihadists such as bin Laden as well as many Islamists in this country.
Today, the Egyptian Ikhwan operates semi-openly, with some members serving in parliament. It eschews violence against the government of Hosni Mubarak, arguing that it can attain its goals by peaceful proselytizing, one wayward soul at a time. Still, Mubarak has banned the Brotherhood, labeling it a terrorist front, and jailed hundreds.
Egypt remains the Brotherhood's center of gravity, with Mohammed Akef, its "Supreme Guide" in that country, considered by many to be the group's de facto leader worldwide. Akef embodies the contradictions of the movement, with statements supporting democratic elections as well as violence against Americans in Iraq.
In the 1950s, Brotherhood activists -- reeling from their suppression in Egypt, Iraq and Syria -- found a refuge in Saudi Arabia, newly awash in oil money. Thousands of Ikhwanis became teachers, lawyers and engineers there, staffing government agencies, establishing Saudi universities and banks, and rewriting curricula.
With royal family approval, Brotherhood activists also launched the largest Saudi charities, including the Muslim World League in 1963 and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth in 1973. Funded by petro dollars, they became global missionaries spreading the Saudis' austere and rigid Wahhabi school of Islam, whose adherents at times describe all non-Wahhabis as infidels.
The missionary work morphed into armed struggle in Afghanistan, where in the 1980s Saudi-financed Brotherhood activists helped repel the Soviet invasion, with support from the CIA and Pakistan. As Islamic radicalism spread with the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan in 1989, many Ikhwanis laboring for the Saudis embraced worldwide jihad and were at al Qaeda's inception.
The Brotherhood began to fall out of favor with the Saudis in 1990, when the Ikhwan backed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in his invasion of Kuwait. The Saudis slowly cut off funding.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Saudi leaders began describing the transnational Brotherhood as the germ of al Qaeda while playing down the role of its government-backed clergy. Recently, Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef repeatedly denounced the Brotherhood, saying it is guilty of "betrayal of pledges and ingratitude" and is "the source of all problems in the Islamic world."
Coming to America
In the 1960s, Brotherhood activists started arriving in the United States. Most embraced modernism and American culture, people who sympathize with them said. Many also ended a formal tie to the Cairo-based Ikhwan headquarters even as they hewed to Ikhwan principles. Among their main goals were carving out havens for Muslims, propagating Islam in America and backing Israel's destruction, said Ali Ahmed, a Saudi activist in Washington close to many Ikhwanis.
"In this country the Ikhwan is mostly not a formal membership organization but a set of ideas people subscribe to," Ahmed said. "A lot of Brotherhood people who came here became more moderate and interested in democracy, while others became more radical."
A U.S. official familiar with federal investigations of former Brotherhood members said some developed "a disciplined strategy, specific goals" to act on their plan to convert Americans, starting with U.S. military personnel, prison inmates and black people.
Many Brotherhood leaders advocate patience in promoting their goals. In a 1995 speech to an Islamic conference in Ohio, a top Brotherhood official, Youssef Qaradawi, said victory will come through dawah -- Islamic renewal and outreach -- according to a transcript provided by the Investigative Project, a Washington terrorism research group. "Conquest through dawah, that is what we hope for," said Qaradawi, an influential Qatari imam who pens some of the religious edicts justifying Hamas suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. "We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America, not through the sword but through dawah," said the imam, who has condemned the Sept. 11 attacks but is now barred from the United States.
In his speech, Qaradawi said the dawah would work through Islamic groups set up by Brotherhood supporters in this country. He praised supporters who were jailed by Arab governments in 1950s and then came to the United States to "fight the seculars and the Westernized" by founding this country's leading Islamic groups.
He named the Muslim Students Association (MSA), which was founded in 1963. Twenty years later, the MSA -- using $21 million raised in part from Qaradawi, banker Nada and the emir of Qatar -- opened a headquarters complex built on former farmland in suburban Indianapolis. With 150 chapters, the MSA is one of the nation's largest college groups.
The MSA Web site said the group's essential task "was always dawah." Nowadays, Muslim activists say, its members represent all schools of Islam and political leanings -- many are moderates, while others express anti-U.S. views or support violence against Israelis.
Some of the same Brotherhood people who started the MSA also launched the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) in 1971. The trust is a financing arm that holds title to hundreds of U.S. mosques and manages bank accounts for Muslim groups using Islamic principles.
In 1981, some of the same people launched the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which was also cited in Qaradawi's speech. It is an umbrella organization for Islamic groups that holds annual conventions drawing more than 25,000 people. Some U.S. officials praise its moderation, and its Islamic Horizons magazine covers such topics as Muslim Boy Scouts and Islamic investing principles.
People who helped set up the MSA, NAIT, ISNA and related groups say they are in no way anti-American -- they say they embrace American values while trying to strengthen their Muslim identities. They say their goal is not converting all Americans to Islam but constructing a vibrant Muslim community here.
The MSA, NAIT and ISNA did not respond to requests for comment. Officials from those organizations have said elsewhere they are not connected to foreign groups, such as the Brotherhood. But because the Brotherhood is a secret society, its precise links around the world are hard to determine, U.S. officials said.
In addition to the first generation of groups aimed at consolidating the U.S. Islamic community, a second generation arose to wield political and business clout.
One such group was the American Muslim Council (AMC), launched in 1990 to urge Muslims to get involved in politics and other civic activities. One of its founders was Mahmoud Abu Saud, who 58 years before helped Banna expand the Brotherhood, and who later became a top financial adviser to governments from Morocco to Kuwait, according to documents provided by the SITE Institute, a Washington terrorism research group that has written reports critical of the Brotherhood. The AMC folded in 2003, and a more moderate group has assumed that name.
One leader of the former AMC was Abdurahman Alamoudi, who U.S. officials and Islamic activists say is a Brotherhood associate. In July he pleaded guilty to moving funds from Libya, which was illegal because the United States at the time considered that country a sponsor of terrorism. Federal documents in the case say he is a Hamas supporter. Alamoudi also was identified by U.S. officials in June as a participant in a plot hatched by Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi to assassinate the Saudi head of state, Crown Prince Abdullah.
Another group in this generation is the Muslim American Society, based in Falls Church, which was co-founded in 1992 by Akef, the recently installed head of Egypt's Brotherhood, and other Ikhwanis, Akef told the Chicago Tribune in February. The group's goals include spreading Islam to Muslims and non-Muslims and building "a virtuous and moral society." Its officials deny ties to the Ikhwan.
Home in Northern Virginia
Since the mid-1990s, a Northern Virginia-based group of companies, charities and think tanks has also been under off-and-on scrutiny by U.S. officials looking into whether it has ties to anti-Israel terrorist financing. Lawyers for the informal network, centered on the Herndon-based International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), deny impropriety.
Jordanian political figure Farhan, who was barred from this country in 2000 and then received U.S. diplomats' apologies in Amman, had been on his way to a Virginia board meeting of the IIIT, which he had helped lead for years.
Lawyer Nancy Luque said her clients embrace American values such as democracy and equality for women. "They love this country," she said. "Their kids are in school here becoming doctors and lawyers." In the 1980s and early 1990s, she said, her clients gave intelligence tips picked up by their global contacts to the State and Defense departments.
The IIIT network was set up in the 1980s largely by onetime Brotherhood sympathizers with money from wealthy Saudis, Muslim activists said. A number of its members ended their Brotherhood ties years ago after concluding it was too inflexible but still advocate some of its principles, the activists said.
Some network figures had dealings with activists who ran two vehemently anti-Israel groups out of the University of South Florida in Tampa, federal documents said. One of the activists, USF professor Sami al-Arian, was indicted last year on charges of conspiracy to commit murder via suicide attacks in Israel. Officials said he was secretly a top leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization. Al-Arian denies the charges.
The network's lawyers say that its ties to Al-Arian were fleeting. The government is looking into whether the network engaged in tax violations and "suspected terrorism-related money laundering activities," a U.S. customs agent stated in a report on the probe filed in federal court a year ago.
Luque said her clients abhor terrorism, including against Israelis.
But an IIIT book called "Violence," published in 2001, said Israel is a "foreign usurper" that must be confronted with "fear, terror and lack of security." The book, by IIIT official AbdulHamid AbuSulayman, says, "Fighting is a duty of the oppressed people." Palestinian fighters must choose their targets "whether the targets are civilian or military," it said, adding that any such attacks should not be "excessive." The book said such attacks are justified acts of a liberation struggle, not terrorism.
The life story of one of the IIIT network's leaders illustrates the key role it has played in the global politics of the Ikhwan. Jamal M. Barzinji fled his native Iraq in 1969 when the Baathist regime started executing fellow Islamists. An engineering student and top MSA leader, he joined MSA associates in 1971 to host the top leaders of the Egyptian Brotherhood, just released from 16 years in prison, for two weeks of meetings in Indiana.
He and other then-MSA leaders helped persuade the Egyptian brothers to try participating in Egyptian elections as an alternative to underground struggle, he said. "It was one of our main contributions to the Ikhwan movement worldwide," he said. He and his associates likewise have hosted many other Islamist leaders here over the years to "show them how wrong they are in being anti-American," Barzinji said.
But the government's current probe of the IIIT network undercuts their efforts toward moderation, he said. "The extremists say: 'See? All American society is corrupt.' "
Beyond U.S. Shores
Some U.S. Islam experts say law enforcement investigations of Ikhwan-tied activists complicate U.S. diplomatic dialogues with Brotherhood members overseas. For years, State Department and CIA officials have met with Brotherhood activists in Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, the Palestinian territories and elsewhere to track currents within Islamic politics.
"We want to know where they're coming from, to influence them," said Edward P. Djerejian, a former top State Department official who now runs Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.
At the same time, host governments in Cairo, Tunis and elsewhere warn that the Brotherhood is dangerous. So do many in U.S. law enforcement. "There were debates all the time about meeting with them," Djerejian said.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, pockets in the government -- including officials in State's Near East bureau and diplomats posted overseas -- have quietly advocated that the government reach out to the Brotherhood and its allies. These officials and some in U.S. think tanks hope the Brotherhood can temper its anti-U.S. stance and become a barrier against jihadists worldwide.
"Bin Laden-ism can only be gutted by fundamentalists" such as the Ikhwan, said Reuel Gerecht, a former CIA officer in the Middle East who is tracking pro-democracy activism in the region for the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
As U.S. officials try to promote democracy in Muslim countries, he said, "it's inevitable the U.S. will engage the fundamentalists" because of their popularity in those societies. Indeed, many Arab experts say the Ikhwan or its allies could win open elections in countries such as Egypt and Algeria.
But many in the government oppose engagement because it runs counter to the wishes of close U.S. allies in the Egyptian and Moroccan governments, which feel threatened by the Brotherhood.
"At high levels of the government, there's no desire to go in the direction of dialogue," said Fuller, the former CIA official. "It's still seen as fairly way out." But he warns against a litmus test for talking to Islamists -- such as eliminating those who embrace anti-Israel terrorism or make anti-American statements. "There's hardly an Islamic group anywhere that hasn't done that," he said.
Leslie Campbell, who runs Middle East affairs for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, supports the outreach idea. Campbell, who trains Arab politicians including Islamists, hosted a delegation in July from a Brotherhood-tied political party in Yemen to the Democratic National Convention in Boston.
"They appreciated that the U.S. had reached out to them," he said. "If they're empowered, they'd serve as a bulwark against those who want to destroy."
Research editor Margot Williams contributed to this report.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
In Search Of Friends Among The Foes
U.S. Hopes to Work With Diverse Group
By John Mintz and Douglas Farah
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, September 11, 2004; Page A01
When U.S. immigration officers in New York City whisked away Ishaq Farhan as he stepped off an incoming international flight in May 2000, his Jordanian diplomatic passport was no help to him. Federal agents questioned him for hours before barring his entry into the country. Then they made him pay for the flight back to Jordan.
The U.S. Embassy in Jordan lost no time making amends to Farhan, a leading opposition politician who has been closely affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide movement opposed to Western influences. A State Department official visited his home, issued him an immediate visa and passed on the United States' "deep regret for the difficulties Dr. Farhan experienced."
The episode demonstrates the U.S. government's dilemma. Some federal agents worry that the Muslim Brotherhood has dangerous links to terrorism. But some U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials believe its influence offers an opportunity for political engagement that could help isolate violent jihadists.
"It is the preeminent movement in the Muslim world," said Graham E. Fuller, a former CIA official specializing in the Middle East. "It's something we can work with." Demonizing the Brotherhood "would be foolhardy in the extreme," he warned.
The Brotherhood's history and the challenges it poses to U.S. officials illustrate the complexity of the political front in the campaign against terrorism three years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. FBI agents and financial investigators probe the group for terrorist ties and legal violations, while diplomats simultaneously discuss strategies for co-opting at least its moderate wings. In both sectors of the U.S. government, the Brotherhood often remains a mystery.
The Brotherhood -- or al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, as it is known in Arabic -- is a sprawling and secretive society with followers in more than 70 countries. It is dedicated to creating an Islamic civilization that harks back to the caliphates of the 7th and 8th centuries, one that would segregate women from public life and scorn nonbelievers.
In some nations -- Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Sudan -- the Brotherhood has fomented Islamic revolution. In the Palestinian territories, the Brotherhood created the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, which has become known for its suicide bombings of Israelis. Yet it is also a sophisticated and diverse organization that appeals to many Muslims worldwide and sometimes advocates peaceful persuasion, not violent revolt. Some of its supporters went on to help found al Qaeda, while others launched one of the largest college student groups in the United States.
For decades, the Brotherhood enjoyed the support of the government of Saudi Arabia and its oil billions, which helped the group expand in the United States.
Past and present Muslim Brotherhood supporters make up the U.S. Islamic community's most organized force. They run hundreds of mosques and dozens of businesses engaging in ventures such as real estate development and banking. They also helped set up some of the leading American Islamic organizations that defend the rights of Muslims, promote Muslim civic activism and seek to spread Islam.
For years federal agents paid little heed to the Brotherhood, but after Sept. 11 they noticed that many leads went back to the Brotherhood. "We see some sort of nexus, direct or indirect, to the Brotherhood, in ongoing cases," said Dennis Lormel, until recently a top FBI counterterrorism official.
The architect of the Sept. 11 strikes, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, told U.S. interrogators that he was drawn to violent jihad after joining the Brotherhood in Kuwait at age 16 and attending its desert youth camps, according to the report released in July by the national commission that investigated the attacks.
Brotherhood radicals in Germany and Spain are suspected of organizing logistical support for the al Qaeda cell that carried out the attacks. Western governments subsequently shut down a huge banking network in Switzerland, Liechtenstein and the Bahamas that was set up by a leading Brotherhood figure, citing its numerous financial ties to al Qaeda and other terrorists. The founder, Youssef Nada, denies wrongdoing.
In March 2002, federal agents in Northern Virginia raided a cluster of Muslim think tanks, companies and foundations run mostly by men who sympathized with the Brotherhood in Iraq and elsewhere in the 1960s. No charges have resulted, but U.S. officials stated in court earlier this year that they are pursuing terrorist financing allegations. Members of the group, known for their relative political moderation, say they ended Brotherhood ties years ago and deny wrongdoing.
In a 42-count indictment in July, the government alleged that an Islamic charity, the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, funneled $12.4 million to a designated terrorist group, Hamas. The indictment said the Holy Land Foundation was "deeply involved with a network of Muslim Brotherhood organizations dedicated to furthering the Islamic fundamentalist agenda espoused by Hamas." The Holy Land Foundation denies wrongdoing.
The indictment alleges that the Holy Land Foundation and its Brotherhood allies performed services for Hamas -- fundraising, banking, producing videos and distributing literature. The Brotherhood network, according to the indictment, also hosted conferences -- featuring Hamas officials and radical sheiks -- that glorified extremism and included "violent dramatic skits depicting the killing of Jewish people." But the Brotherhood was not charged with any crimes.
One alleged Brotherhood figure is Soliman S. Biheiri, a Northern Virginia finance company executive convicted last year of lying to obtain U.S. citizenship. Biheiri, who federal documents say invested money for years in this country for Hamas officials, is "the Muslim Brotherhood's financial toehold in the U.S.," federal prosecutor Steven Ward said last year in court.
For law enforcement, the Brotherhood remains a worrisome enigma.
"The complication is they are a political movement, an economic cadre and in some cases terrorist supporters," said Juan Zarate, chief of the Treasury Department's terrorist finance unit. "They operate business empires in the Western world, but their philosophy and ultimate objectives are radical Islamist goals that in many ways are antithetical to our interests. They have one foot in our world and one foot in a world hostile to us. How to decipher what is good, bad or suspect is a severe complication."
Until recently "there wasn't a recognition of the logistical and financial ties to terrorism through the Muslim Brotherhood," Zarate added.
A senior U.S. law enforcement official said the FBI studied the Brotherhood -- or the Ikhwan -- from afar for a decade, but "we are more actively aware of them now." One worrisome feature of the network, he said, is the secret bond among Brotherhood activists. "We are very interested in relations among people and entities," he said. "People know each other for 20 years and will do anything for them because they are all 'brothers.' "
The Brotherhood has been connected to many Islamic extremists worldwide. Two Egyptian Brotherhood members went on to found split-off terrorist groups: Ayman Zawahiri, now Osama bin Laden's deputy, and blind sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who was convicted in 1995 of plotting to blow up New York landmarks.
One top movement leader is Nada, who was jailed in Egypt in the 1950s for Brotherhood activities. He later became wealthy selling construction materials in Saudi Arabia, where he was called the "cement king," and now lives in a sprawling Italian villa.
With "significant backing from the Muslim Brotherhood," Nada set up a complex global banking network in the 1980s, the Treasury Department said when it recently designated Nada and two other Brotherhood officials as terrorist financiers. U.S. and European officials say the network has funded al Qaeda, Hamas and Algeria's Armed Islamic Group -- assertions that Nada denies. Although the network was supposedly shut down, U.S. and European officials say they still find Nada moving funds under new corporate names.
One of Nada's key aides has been a Holocaust revisionist from Switzerland, Ahmed Huber -- one of many neo-Nazis who helped the Ikhwan set up its financial structure.
Muslim activists who know current and former Brotherhood sympathizers in this country say bitter opposition to Israel is a key part of Brotherhood beliefs. Law enforcement sources say hundreds of current and former Ikhwan supporters nationwide are under federal investigation for alleged financial support of Hamas and other Palestinian groups deemed terrorists by the U.S. government.
But some Brotherhood experts say most wings of the movement are moderate and no threat to the United States. Ahmad Sakr, who has known Brotherhood activists in his native Lebanon and in this country, said U.S. officials are "100 percent wrong" to treat the Ikhwan with suspicion.
"They're not military men or terrorists," said Sakr, a Muslim activist in California. "They're educated and contribute to the success of America. The Muslim Brothers want to practice Islam in their families and in themselves, to show Islam is for every human being. . . . I never saw humble people like them. They give everything for the honor of God."
The Saudi Connection
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by a 22-year-old schoolteacher named Hassan Banna in his house in the Egyptian city of Ismailiyya. Banna railed against the colonial powers' humiliation of Muslims, and preached that governments should be ruled by Islamic law, or sharia.
Members swore obedience to Banna, pledging iron discipline and secrecy. They were organized into tiers of membership, with some forming a covert military wing to confront the Cairo regime.
As the Ikhwan's following grew to half a million, Banna was assassinated by Egyptian officials in 1949. Five years later, after Brotherhood members fired shots at Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, thousands of Ikhwanis were imprisoned, shattering the organization. Hundreds more were jailed in Syria and Iraq. Another Brotherhood leader, Sayyid Qutb, who advocated militant jihad against nonbelievers and revolution against impure Muslim states, was hanged by Egypt in 1966. Qutb's books would later provide the philosophical underpinning for jihadists such as bin Laden as well as many Islamists in this country.
Today, the Egyptian Ikhwan operates semi-openly, with some members serving in parliament. It eschews violence against the government of Hosni Mubarak, arguing that it can attain its goals by peaceful proselytizing, one wayward soul at a time. Still, Mubarak has banned the Brotherhood, labeling it a terrorist front, and jailed hundreds.
Egypt remains the Brotherhood's center of gravity, with Mohammed Akef, its "Supreme Guide" in that country, considered by many to be the group's de facto leader worldwide. Akef embodies the contradictions of the movement, with statements supporting democratic elections as well as violence against Americans in Iraq.
In the 1950s, Brotherhood activists -- reeling from their suppression in Egypt, Iraq and Syria -- found a refuge in Saudi Arabia, newly awash in oil money. Thousands of Ikhwanis became teachers, lawyers and engineers there, staffing government agencies, establishing Saudi universities and banks, and rewriting curricula.
With royal family approval, Brotherhood activists also launched the largest Saudi charities, including the Muslim World League in 1963 and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth in 1973. Funded by petro dollars, they became global missionaries spreading the Saudis' austere and rigid Wahhabi school of Islam, whose adherents at times describe all non-Wahhabis as infidels.
The missionary work morphed into armed struggle in Afghanistan, where in the 1980s Saudi-financed Brotherhood activists helped repel the Soviet invasion, with support from the CIA and Pakistan. As Islamic radicalism spread with the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan in 1989, many Ikhwanis laboring for the Saudis embraced worldwide jihad and were at al Qaeda's inception.
The Brotherhood began to fall out of favor with the Saudis in 1990, when the Ikhwan backed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in his invasion of Kuwait. The Saudis slowly cut off funding.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Saudi leaders began describing the transnational Brotherhood as the germ of al Qaeda while playing down the role of its government-backed clergy. Recently, Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef repeatedly denounced the Brotherhood, saying it is guilty of "betrayal of pledges and ingratitude" and is "the source of all problems in the Islamic world."
Coming to America
In the 1960s, Brotherhood activists started arriving in the United States. Most embraced modernism and American culture, people who sympathize with them said. Many also ended a formal tie to the Cairo-based Ikhwan headquarters even as they hewed to Ikhwan principles. Among their main goals were carving out havens for Muslims, propagating Islam in America and backing Israel's destruction, said Ali Ahmed, a Saudi activist in Washington close to many Ikhwanis.
"In this country the Ikhwan is mostly not a formal membership organization but a set of ideas people subscribe to," Ahmed said. "A lot of Brotherhood people who came here became more moderate and interested in democracy, while others became more radical."
A U.S. official familiar with federal investigations of former Brotherhood members said some developed "a disciplined strategy, specific goals" to act on their plan to convert Americans, starting with U.S. military personnel, prison inmates and black people.
Many Brotherhood leaders advocate patience in promoting their goals. In a 1995 speech to an Islamic conference in Ohio, a top Brotherhood official, Youssef Qaradawi, said victory will come through dawah -- Islamic renewal and outreach -- according to a transcript provided by the Investigative Project, a Washington terrorism research group. "Conquest through dawah, that is what we hope for," said Qaradawi, an influential Qatari imam who pens some of the religious edicts justifying Hamas suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. "We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America, not through the sword but through dawah," said the imam, who has condemned the Sept. 11 attacks but is now barred from the United States.
In his speech, Qaradawi said the dawah would work through Islamic groups set up by Brotherhood supporters in this country. He praised supporters who were jailed by Arab governments in 1950s and then came to the United States to "fight the seculars and the Westernized" by founding this country's leading Islamic groups.
He named the Muslim Students Association (MSA), which was founded in 1963. Twenty years later, the MSA -- using $21 million raised in part from Qaradawi, banker Nada and the emir of Qatar -- opened a headquarters complex built on former farmland in suburban Indianapolis. With 150 chapters, the MSA is one of the nation's largest college groups.
The MSA Web site said the group's essential task "was always dawah." Nowadays, Muslim activists say, its members represent all schools of Islam and political leanings -- many are moderates, while others express anti-U.S. views or support violence against Israelis.
Some of the same Brotherhood people who started the MSA also launched the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) in 1971. The trust is a financing arm that holds title to hundreds of U.S. mosques and manages bank accounts for Muslim groups using Islamic principles.
In 1981, some of the same people launched the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which was also cited in Qaradawi's speech. It is an umbrella organization for Islamic groups that holds annual conventions drawing more than 25,000 people. Some U.S. officials praise its moderation, and its Islamic Horizons magazine covers such topics as Muslim Boy Scouts and Islamic investing principles.
People who helped set up the MSA, NAIT, ISNA and related groups say they are in no way anti-American -- they say they embrace American values while trying to strengthen their Muslim identities. They say their goal is not converting all Americans to Islam but constructing a vibrant Muslim community here.
The MSA, NAIT and ISNA did not respond to requests for comment. Officials from those organizations have said elsewhere they are not connected to foreign groups, such as the Brotherhood. But because the Brotherhood is a secret society, its precise links around the world are hard to determine, U.S. officials said.
In addition to the first generation of groups aimed at consolidating the U.S. Islamic community, a second generation arose to wield political and business clout.
One such group was the American Muslim Council (AMC), launched in 1990 to urge Muslims to get involved in politics and other civic activities. One of its founders was Mahmoud Abu Saud, who 58 years before helped Banna expand the Brotherhood, and who later became a top financial adviser to governments from Morocco to Kuwait, according to documents provided by the SITE Institute, a Washington terrorism research group that has written reports critical of the Brotherhood. The AMC folded in 2003, and a more moderate group has assumed that name.
One leader of the former AMC was Abdurahman Alamoudi, who U.S. officials and Islamic activists say is a Brotherhood associate. In July he pleaded guilty to moving funds from Libya, which was illegal because the United States at the time considered that country a sponsor of terrorism. Federal documents in the case say he is a Hamas supporter. Alamoudi also was identified by U.S. officials in June as a participant in a plot hatched by Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi to assassinate the Saudi head of state, Crown Prince Abdullah.
Another group in this generation is the Muslim American Society, based in Falls Church, which was co-founded in 1992 by Akef, the recently installed head of Egypt's Brotherhood, and other Ikhwanis, Akef told the Chicago Tribune in February. The group's goals include spreading Islam to Muslims and non-Muslims and building "a virtuous and moral society." Its officials deny ties to the Ikhwan.
Home in Northern Virginia
Since the mid-1990s, a Northern Virginia-based group of companies, charities and think tanks has also been under off-and-on scrutiny by U.S. officials looking into whether it has ties to anti-Israel terrorist financing. Lawyers for the informal network, centered on the Herndon-based International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), deny impropriety.
Jordanian political figure Farhan, who was barred from this country in 2000 and then received U.S. diplomats' apologies in Amman, had been on his way to a Virginia board meeting of the IIIT, which he had helped lead for years.
Lawyer Nancy Luque said her clients embrace American values such as democracy and equality for women. "They love this country," she said. "Their kids are in school here becoming doctors and lawyers." In the 1980s and early 1990s, she said, her clients gave intelligence tips picked up by their global contacts to the State and Defense departments.
The IIIT network was set up in the 1980s largely by onetime Brotherhood sympathizers with money from wealthy Saudis, Muslim activists said. A number of its members ended their Brotherhood ties years ago after concluding it was too inflexible but still advocate some of its principles, the activists said.
Some network figures had dealings with activists who ran two vehemently anti-Israel groups out of the University of South Florida in Tampa, federal documents said. One of the activists, USF professor Sami al-Arian, was indicted last year on charges of conspiracy to commit murder via suicide attacks in Israel. Officials said he was secretly a top leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization. Al-Arian denies the charges.
The network's lawyers say that its ties to Al-Arian were fleeting. The government is looking into whether the network engaged in tax violations and "suspected terrorism-related money laundering activities," a U.S. customs agent stated in a report on the probe filed in federal court a year ago.
Luque said her clients abhor terrorism, including against Israelis.
But an IIIT book called "Violence," published in 2001, said Israel is a "foreign usurper" that must be confronted with "fear, terror and lack of security." The book, by IIIT official AbdulHamid AbuSulayman, says, "Fighting is a duty of the oppressed people." Palestinian fighters must choose their targets "whether the targets are civilian or military," it said, adding that any such attacks should not be "excessive." The book said such attacks are justified acts of a liberation struggle, not terrorism.
The life story of one of the IIIT network's leaders illustrates the key role it has played in the global politics of the Ikhwan. Jamal M. Barzinji fled his native Iraq in 1969 when the Baathist regime started executing fellow Islamists. An engineering student and top MSA leader, he joined MSA associates in 1971 to host the top leaders of the Egyptian Brotherhood, just released from 16 years in prison, for two weeks of meetings in Indiana.
He and other then-MSA leaders helped persuade the Egyptian brothers to try participating in Egyptian elections as an alternative to underground struggle, he said. "It was one of our main contributions to the Ikhwan movement worldwide," he said. He and his associates likewise have hosted many other Islamist leaders here over the years to "show them how wrong they are in being anti-American," Barzinji said.
But the government's current probe of the IIIT network undercuts their efforts toward moderation, he said. "The extremists say: 'See? All American society is corrupt.' "
Beyond U.S. Shores
Some U.S. Islam experts say law enforcement investigations of Ikhwan-tied activists complicate U.S. diplomatic dialogues with Brotherhood members overseas. For years, State Department and CIA officials have met with Brotherhood activists in Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, the Palestinian territories and elsewhere to track currents within Islamic politics.
"We want to know where they're coming from, to influence them," said Edward P. Djerejian, a former top State Department official who now runs Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.
At the same time, host governments in Cairo, Tunis and elsewhere warn that the Brotherhood is dangerous. So do many in U.S. law enforcement. "There were debates all the time about meeting with them," Djerejian said.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, pockets in the government -- including officials in State's Near East bureau and diplomats posted overseas -- have quietly advocated that the government reach out to the Brotherhood and its allies. These officials and some in U.S. think tanks hope the Brotherhood can temper its anti-U.S. stance and become a barrier against jihadists worldwide.
"Bin Laden-ism can only be gutted by fundamentalists" such as the Ikhwan, said Reuel Gerecht, a former CIA officer in the Middle East who is tracking pro-democracy activism in the region for the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
As U.S. officials try to promote democracy in Muslim countries, he said, "it's inevitable the U.S. will engage the fundamentalists" because of their popularity in those societies. Indeed, many Arab experts say the Ikhwan or its allies could win open elections in countries such as Egypt and Algeria.
But many in the government oppose engagement because it runs counter to the wishes of close U.S. allies in the Egyptian and Moroccan governments, which feel threatened by the Brotherhood.
"At high levels of the government, there's no desire to go in the direction of dialogue," said Fuller, the former CIA official. "It's still seen as fairly way out." But he warns against a litmus test for talking to Islamists -- such as eliminating those who embrace anti-Israel terrorism or make anti-American statements. "There's hardly an Islamic group anywhere that hasn't done that," he said.
Leslie Campbell, who runs Middle East affairs for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, supports the outreach idea. Campbell, who trains Arab politicians including Islamists, hosted a delegation in July from a Brotherhood-tied political party in Yemen to the Democratic National Convention in Boston.
"They appreciated that the U.S. had reached out to them," he said. "If they're empowered, they'd serve as a bulwark against those who want to destroy."
Research editor Margot Williams contributed to this report.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
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