Part 3: The White House Official Who Brought CAIR To England; Former College Professor Architect Of US Counter Extremism

Strategy
By gmbwatch

http://www.globalmbwatch.com/2013/05/22/dhs-memo-relied-saudi-funded-georgetownprofessor-views-muslim-brotherhood/
In June 2011, a little known US government official and former college professor was the center of controversy in the UK when the Times of London reported that his efforts were behind an invitation to an official of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a part of the US Muslim Brotherhood, to meet young British Muslims in connection with a strategy to help them to reject terrorism. The newspaper reported that British anti-extremism experts said they were shocked that the US Government was introducing teenagers to an organisation that promotes Islamic political activism. The Times identified Dr. Quintan Wiktorowicz, an academic formerly posted to the US embassy in London and later promoted to the US National Security Council, as the architect of the strategy behind the invitation to Basim Elkarra who once had an award to him rescinded by California Senator Barbara Boxer after she learned he was a CAIR official. Although the visit was canceled following the controversy, Mr. Elkarra was known to have previously made two official visits to the U.K to meet other Muslim youth and community groups as a guest of the embassy.

Quintan Wiktorowicz

Mr. Elkarra was cited has saying Quintan brought together American and British Muslims to share civic engagement best practices. My visit is strictly about civic engagement, not counter-terrorism. The U.S. Embassy described Mr. Elkarra as an experienced community activist who works in the US to uphold the values of tolerance, mutual respect and inter-religious dialogue.

post from last week discussed the role of individuals tied to the US Muslim Brotherhood serving as Department of postrevealed that DHS had relied upon Saudi-funded Georgetown University professor John Esposito for advice to law enforcement on
A Homeland Security (DHS) advisers on US counter-extremism policy. Another earlier counter-extremism. It appears that Dr. Wiktorowicz is the key White House official who helped the Obama administration fashion its new counter-extremism policies. So who exactly is Dr. Quintan Wiktorowicz and why would be involved in bringing the US Muslim Brotherhood to the UK? A look at Dr. Wiktorowiczs life and work provides useful insight into the Obama administrations views on countering extremism. Several years after graduating from Cornell University, Dr. Wiktorowicz participated in a 1995 summer Islamic studies program in Cairo, Egypt under a USAID fellowship. It may have been during this time that according to an online bio, he studied Islam with an unidentified Sheikh from Al-Azhar, the main center of Islamic and Arabic learning in the world. In 1998, Dr. Wiktorowicz was awarded a PhD in Political Science from American University with a dissertation concerning Islamist networks in Jordan. Following the awarding of his PHD, Dr. Wiktorowicz held several academic positions where he continued his work on Islamist networks including Al-Muhajiroun, the UK based Islamist group in which the two individuals accused of the recent brutal attack on a British solider were members. As a result of the 911 attacks, Dr. Wiktorowicz emerged from academic obscurity and began to be cited by national media as well as testifying before a Senate hearing on international terrorism. He also began speaking at various terrorism conferences.

Dr. Wiktorowicz joined the government in 2005 and until 2009, served as senior analyst at the National Counterterrorism Center having been recruited by Juan Zarate, the Bush-era counterterrorism official. He also served as chair of the Interagency Intelligence Subcommittee on Radicalization and in May 2008 invited controversial U.S. Islamic cleric Yassir Qadi to a conference on U.S. Counter-Radicalization Strategy conference organized by the National Counterterrorism Center. From 2009-2011, Dr. Wiktorowicz was posted to the US London Embassy where he piloted a field-based approach to partnering with Muslim communities at the grassroots level to counter violent extremism, a program that has since been expanded to multiple countries and regions. It was during this time that CAIR official Bassim Elkarra was invited to the UK to meet with young British Muslims. In January 2011, Dr Wiktorowicz was appointed Senior Director for Global Engagement at the National Security Council. In August 2011, the White House revealed its strategy for countering radicalization titled Empowering Local Partners To Prevent Violent Extremism In The United States which the New York Times reported that Dr. Wiktorowicz helped devise. The Times cited him as saying that the administration was aware of inaccurate training on Islam for law enforcement officers that the Obama administration would compile gold standard materials to be posted on the Web for officials to draw upon. The new US strategy appeared to be modeled somewhat upon the UK Prevent Program but unlike that effort, avoided the issue of non-violent extremism and underestimated the importance of Islamist ideology as a factor in fostering violent extremism. (Knowledgable sources in the UK tell us that Dr. Wiktorowiczs approach was based on an earlier version of the Prevent Program that was widely acknowledged to be a complete failure. Also see here and here.) Dr. Wiktorowiczs statements at the time suggest his strong support for including the US Muslim Brotherhood as part of the new strategy. Best known for his unproven theory that increased religiosity actually deters terrorism and despite his critical role as the architect of US counterterrorism strategy, Dr. Wiktorowicz displays an astonishing lack of understanding of the nature of the Global Muslim Brotherhood as well as its relationship with Al Qaeda. For example:

In 2002 testimony to a US Senate subcommittee, Dr. Wiktorowicz appears to be praising Hamas and Hizballah stating they are fundamentally different from al -Qaeda. They are nationalist Islamic movements that operate hospitals and schools, oversee charities, and run in local elections. Al-Qaeda, on the other hand, is a transnational revolutionary movement. He added The typical argument posits that charities can be used as recruitment vehicles, fund raising devices, and centers for violence since they are socially situated to tap into the grievances and discontent of the poor. In other words, providing charity allows radicals to turn the mobilization potential of the disaffected, marginalized members of society (especially young men) into actual mobilization. Certainly this is always a possibility, but it is unlikely This analysis ignores both the transnational nature of Hamas, essentially the Palestinian wing of the Global Muslim Brotherhood, as well as the role of Brotherhood/Hamas charity networks such as the Union of Good (UOG) in both financing and supporting terrorism. The role of Islamic charities in the financing of Al Qaeda has also been well documented since the time Dr. Wiktorowicz made these observations. For his analysis of the moderation of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood, Dr. Wiktorowicz relied on the late 1980s as his point of reference, a unique time during which the Brotherhood briefly enjoyed good relations with the government. Since then, the Jordanian Brotherhood has grown increasingly strident beginning with calls for jihad during the second Gulf War and expressing sympathy to the family of Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi after he was killed in Iraq. More recent examples include support for Sudanese President Omar al- Bashir, accused by the International Criminal Court of genocide in Sudan, calling on Palestinians to begin a Third Intifada and calling for more suicide attacks against Israel, and opposing a U.N treaty on the rights of women.

In 2003, Dr. Wiktorowicz defined Al-Qaeda as a Salafi movement waiting until 2006 toacknowledge the key historical role played by Muslim Brotherhood members and followers of Muslim Brotherhood ideologue Syed Qutb. Despite this acknowledgement, Dr. Wiktorowicz tried to justify his earlier omission by arguing that Qutb held a number of Salafi precepts. In a 2005 article, Wiktorowicz distinguishes between nonviolent and jihadi Salafis. As examples of Salafi scholars who do not belong to the jihadi group, he identifies prominent Saudi figures such as Safar Al-Hawali and Salman Al-Ouda who in fact are key links between the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafis and Al-Qaeda networks. Salman Al-Ouda is an associate of Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Yusuf Qaradawi, while Safar Al-Hawali has been head of the Global Anti-Aggression Campaign (GAAC), an international umbrella group bringing together Middle Eastern and Western Islamist scholars affiliated with both the Muslim Brotherhood as well as Salafi-Jihadi trends, including individuals designated as terrorists by the US.

The 2003 article is one of several that Wiktorowicz published through the Middle East Policy Council (MEPC), a US think tank whose chairman is Omar Kader. Kader was described by an online biography as a first-generation Palestinian-American who was associated with former President Jimmy Carter as an election monitor overseas and who has served as the Executive Director of two major Arab-American organizations. Mr. Kader is also known to have been a board member of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, founded as a joint project by the US State Department, Dr. John Esposito, and the US Muslim Brotherhood.

In 2007, the MEPC accepted a $1 million donation from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal that was meant for future council projects. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is known to have supported various projects around the world that are part of the Global Muslim Brotherhood includingestablishing a scholarship fund at the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). The MEPC National Advisory Committee includes Dr. John Esposito. In 2005, Prince bin Talal discussed above, donated $20 million to the Center for Muslim Christian Understanding at Georgetown, headed by Dr. Esposito. The MEPC Editorial Advisory Committee includes Graham Fuller, former Vice-chair of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA. Mr Fuller is also known to have been a member of the Advisory Board of the Conflicts Forum, headed by former MI6 agent Alastair Crooke who is a supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah.

Given the background of Dr. Wiktorowicz, it is most likely that bringing individuals into the DHS Advisory Committee who are tied to the US Muslim Brotherhood was a conscious decision on the part of the Obama administration as opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood infiltration hypothesis currently circulating in the blogosphere. After all, as part of such an infiltration plan, it would seem rather foolish to choose individuals who are so clearly identified with Islamist organizations. If the policy is to be criticized, it should be instead on the basis that past attempts to use the Muslim Brotherhood as a bulwark against Al Qaeda and related organizations have been miserable failures that eventually backfired on the US. As former Wall Street Journal writer Ian Johnson has observed: if we look to history, we can see a familiar pattern: each time, US leaders have decided that the Brotherhood could be useful and tried to bend it to Americas goals, and each time, maybe not surprisingly, the only party that clearly has benefited has been the Brotherhood. For Part 1 of this story, go here. For Part 2 of this story, go here.

DHS Law Enforcement Guidelines Rely On Saudi-Funded Georgetown Professor For Views On Muslim Brotherhood
By gmbwatch Documents disclosed by US media reveal that the US Department of Homeland Security has relied upon Saudifunded Georgetown University professor John Esposito for advice on counterterrorism training for law enforcement. The Daily Caller has published a checklist from the DHS that provides a set of Dos and Donts for law enforcement counterterrorism trainers. According to the Daily Caller Report:
John Esposito

May 17th 2013 The Department of Homeland Security, which under Secretary Janet Napolitano has shown a keen interest in monitoring and warning about outspoken conservatives, takes a very different approach in monitoring political Islamists, according to a 2011 memo on protecting the free speech rights of pro-Shariah Muslim supremacists. In a checklist obtained by The Daily Caller entitled Countering Violent Extremism Dos and Donts the DHSs Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties notifies local and national law enforcement officials that it is Obama administration policy to consider specifically Islamic criticism of the American system of government legitimate. This policy stands in stark contrast to the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis 2009 memo Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment [pdf], which warned of the dangers posed by pro-life advocates, critics of same-sex marriage and groups concerned with abiding by the U.S. Constitution, among others. The advice of the Dos and Donts list is far more conciliatory. Dont use training that equates radical thought, religious expression, freedom to protest, or other constitutionally-protected activity, including disliking the U.S. government without being violent, the manuals authors write in a section on training being sensitive to constitutional values. The manual, which was produced by an inter-agency working group from DHS and the National Counterterrorism Center, advises, Trainers who equate the desire for Sharia law with criminal activity violate basic tenets of the First Amendment. Read the rest here. Most relevant to the mission of the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch is the section of the memolabeled F. Training should adhere to government standards and efforts.: Dont use training that relies on fear or conspiracies to motivate law enforcement. Dont use training premised on theories with little or no evidence to support them. Examples (from the report Manufacturing the Muslim Menace) of unsubstantiated theories include: a. Many mainstream Muslim organizations have terrorist ties. b. Mainstream Muslim organizations are fronts for Islamic political organizations whose true desire is to establish Sharia law in America. Muslim Americans are using democratic processes, like litigation and free speech, to subvert democracy and install Sharia law.Manufacturing the Muslim Menace , a reportproduced by the leftwinggroup Political Research Associates (PRA), provides their rationale for this guideline: Islamophobic counterterrorism trainers routinely categorize such civil rights groups as the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and Council on American- Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a support network for terrorists. For this charge they lean heavily on guilt by association, citing a few instances of members or former members with troublesome associations as evidence of organizational complicity.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and Council on AmericanIslamic Relations (CAIR) are all important part of the US Muslim Brotherhood and the PRA makes it quite clear who they relied upon for their assessment of the Brotherhood by thanking Professor Ziad Munson and Dr. [John] Esposito for sharing expertise on the Muslim Brotherhood. The PRA report also makes clear the result of relying upon these academics for their view of the Brotherhood. For example, the report states: Private counterterror firms routinely label the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. While there are many terrorist groups in the Middle East and elsewhere, writes John Esposito, it is misleading to refer to the Muslim Brotherhood today as a terrorist group. There is no evidence which supports the proposition that the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. has been or is involved in terrorist or violent activity, says Esposito. On the contrary, there is substantial evidence that the US Muslim Brotherhood been involved in both a robust rhetorical defense of terrorism as well as being actively involved in helping to finance Hamas. Yet, the PRA does not appear to count Hamas nor Hezbollah as terrorist organizations and suggests that DHS agrees: Islamophobic counterterrorism trainers lean heavily on the use of guilt by association. They routinely categorize civil rights groups such as the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a support net- work for terrorists. None of these organizations has been convicted of terrorism or formally charged with providing material support to terrorists, but they are frequently impugned due to their alleged sympathy for Hamas and Hezbollah. To varying degrees, Muslim civil rights groups are led by individuals who oppose the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, and the use of U.S. military operations in predominantly Muslim countries. It has become a norm to simply define Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorists without recognizing that these groups have become conventional political players in recent years, leading some to distinguish between their military and political branches. Even Homeland Security officials recognize that while Hamas and Hezbollah are both listed as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government and have targeted civilians with bombings, they are distinct from al Qaeda in methods and motivations. The PRA report also takes issue with the idea that organizations such as CAIR and ISNA can be held to account for their role as unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case calling CAIR for example a legitimate lobbying group for the rights and civil liberties of Muslims in America, who need protection from McCarthyistic witch hunts. However, even before the Holy Land trial, investigative research had determined that both CAIR and ISNA had extensive ties to the US Hamas infrastructure. In 2009, a US federal judge ruled The Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), and with Hamas. Dr. Munson makes his contribution to the report by attempting to discredit the existence of a Global Muslim Brotherhood, calling it a Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy: The Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy theory fails on at least two counts. First, experts on the Muslim Brotherhood stress that it does not function as a central body for a monolithic global movement. Using the Cold War analogy, Egypt is not Moscow. Lehigh University Professor Ziad Munson concludes , There are simply too many ideological, religious, and historical barriers for this to be a realistic plot. The GMBDW has extensively refuted these comic book conceptions of the Global Muslim Brotherhood, never once suggesting that its either a central body nor that it is a monolithic global movement. Dr. Munson goes to display an astonishing lack of familiarity with the Muslim Brotherhood in the US by claiming that it makes little sense that the Muslim Brotherhood would use front organizations in the United States. As the report states: The Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy theory fails, secondly, because it makes little sense that the Muslim Brotherhood would use front organizations in the United States. Not only does the organization have little or no organizational

capacity here, according to Munson, but building front organizations is not in the Muslim Brotherhoods repertoire. To Munson, a secret infiltration by the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States does not pass the sniff test. Historically, the Muslim Brotherhood runs candidates openly in all cases when permitted by law, even where its supporters and candidates are arrested and harassed. It has formed front groups only out of necessity in predominantly Muslim countries that specifically outlaw religious parties. However, reli- gious parties are not outlawed in the United States. On the contrary, a Hudson Institute report extensively documents the creation of US Muslim Brotherhood front organizations concluding Since the early 1960s, the Brotherhood has constructed an elaborate covert organizational infrastructure on which was built a set of public or front organizations. The GMBDW is not familiar with Dr. Munson or his work but the above views are not surprising given the reliance upon Dr. Esposito for conclusions about the US Muslim Brotherhood. Dr. John Esposito is a professor of International Affairs and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University. He is also the director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. Esposito, a former U.S. State Department advisor, has espoused views consistent with Brotherhood doctrine and during the 1990s was known for his claims that Islamic fundamentalism was, in fact, democratic and posed no threat to the U.S. Dr. Esposito has at least a dozen past or present affiliations with global Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas organizations including having served on the advisory board of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in the U.K. headed by Azzam Tamimi, a leader in the U.K. Muslim Brotherhood and often described as a Hamas spokesman. Dr. Esposito has also served with global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi on the Steering Committee of the Circle of Tradition and Progress and enjoyed a close relationship with the United Association For Studies and Research (USAR), part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhoods Palestine Committee and part of the Hamas support infrastructure. In 2005, Saudi prince Alaweed bin Talal, a financial supporter of the global Muslim Brotherhood, donated $20 million to the Center for Muslim Christian Understanding at Georgetown, headed by Dr. Esposito. There is solid evidence evidence to suggest that the US Muslim Brotherhood has had substantial influence over the change in DHS counterterrorism language. A January 2008 DHS memo urged employees not to use terms including jihad, jihadist or Islamic terrorist in describing Islamic terrorists. The DHS memo stated that it is based on recommendations from a wide variety of American Muslim leaders and originated in a meeting with influential Muslim Americans and a June 2007 article in a San Francisco newspaper appears to identify the four Muslims Americans leaders as

Akbar Ahmed, former ambassador from Pakistan Reza Aslan, author M.J. Kahn, Houston City Councilman Shahed Amanullah, Austin Texas blogger

The key influence here is likely Akbar Ahmed, known to have been a board member of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID), an organization with many links to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. Apost from last week reported that Dr. Akbar served as First Distinguished Chair for Middle East/Islamic Studies at the US Naval Academy from 2008-2009. Shahed Amanullah has gone on to become the SeniorAdvisor for Technology at Department of State. It should also be noted that since 2004, DHS has enjoyed seemingly cordial relations with the Muslim Public Affair Council (MPAC), a part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. Since its inception, MPAC has has taken the lead role among the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood organizations in attempting to control the use of language along the lines proposed in the DHS report. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) also has long pushed for such language changes.

The 2008 DHS memo also indicated that the engagement of the U.S. government with the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood would continue to increase: There is a good level of engagement between the Federal government and Muslim American communities, and it will continue to increase over the upcoming months and years. Indeed, we have the hope of seeing levels of engagement between the USG and Arab and Muslim Americans that have never been reached in the history of this country. For example, leading Arab, Muslim, and South Asian American groups have met multiple times with the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, the Director of the FBI, the Secretary of the Treasury, and senior officials at the State Department. For part 2 of this story, go here.

Part 2: Muslim Brotherhood At The US Department Of Homeland Security

By gmbwatch

http://www.globalmbwatch.com/2013/05/23/part-2-muslim-brotherhood-department-homelandsecurity/
A post from yesterday reported that the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had relied upon Saudi-funded Georgetown University professor John Esposito for advice on law enforcement counterterrorism training. While that post also discussed some of the background of US Muslim Brotherhood influence on DHS, the extent of that influence has yet to be reported. In addition to the findings of yesterdays post, a look at the makeup of the DHS Countering Violent Extremism Working Group reveals that of the six likely Muslim members of the 16-person Working Group, four were either close to or part of the US Muslim Brotherhood. The document reporting on the findings of the Working Group explains their mission as follows: Recognizing that there have been many successful cases of local law enforcement working with communities to fight violent crime, at the February 2010 HSAC Meeting Secretary Napolitano tasked the HSAC to work with state and local law enforcement as well as relevant community groups to develop and provide to me recommendations regarding how the Department can better support community-based efforts to combat violent extremism domestically focusing in particular on the issues of training, information sharing, and the adoption of community-oriented law enforcement approaches to this issue. The four members of the group in questions were identified as:

Dalia Mogahed (Senior Analyst and Executive Director, Gallup Center for Muslim Studies) Mohamed Elibiary (President and CEO, The Freedom and Justice Foundation) Mohamed Magid (Executive Director, All Dulles Area Muslim Society- ADAMS Center) Nadia Roumani (Director, American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute)

Dahlia Mogahed

Dahlia Mogahed is currently the executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies that also includes Georgetown University academic Dr. John Esposito and she also coauthored a book with Dr. Esposito. As noted above, a post from yesterday reported that DHS had relied upon Dr. Esposito for advice on law enforcement counterterrorism training and that post details Espositos close ties to the Global Muslim Brotherhood and to Saudi Arabia. Ms. Mogahed was born in Egypt and lived in the U.S. since the age of 5. She is the daughter of Elsayed Mogahed, an Egyptian immigrant who is a former engineering scientist at the University of Wisconsin and director of the Islamic Center of Madison (ICM). The website of the ICM links mainly to U.S. Muslim Brotherhood organizations and Souheil Ghannouchi, the President of the Muslim American Society (MAS), close to the Egyptian Brotherhood, was ICM Imam and President for several years. In 2003, Ms. Mogahed was identified in 2003 as the Outreach Coordinator for the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh (ICP) whose co-founder lost a DOE security clearance and whose Imam was expected to be deported on immigration violations. Ms. Mogahed was appointed to the Presidents Advisory Council on Faith -Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in April 2009. In June 2010, Ms. Mogahed was appointed head of a new center for social research and analysis in Abu Dhabi to be called the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center. The Investigative Project has published a report analyzing the support for US Muslim Brotherhood organizations and their positions provided by Ms. Mogahed.

Mohamed Elibiary

Mohamed Elibiary is a co-founder of the Freedom and Justice Foundation (FJF), an organization whose Advisory Council is comprised of manymembers who are associated with the Islamic Association of North Texas which operates the Dallas Central Mosque (DCM). Both organizations are known to be associated with the US Muslim Brotherhood and the Hamas infrastructure in the US including the now defunct Holy Land Foundation (HLF). The most prominent of these Advisory Council members is Dr. Yusuf Kavakci, recently a board member at large of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), who has served as Imam of the DCM that was described in a 1999 article in a Counterterrorism Journal as: considered to be one of the most active centers of Hamas activity in the United States and hosts the leadership and members of both the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) and the Holy Land Foundation (HLF). Both organizations are the primary conduits for Hamas activity and fundraising in the United States. (See Note 2) A former FBI analyst has also written that the two of the Elashi brothers, later convicted of terrorism financing as leaders of the HLF, had personal ties to the DCM, one serving as a board member and the other active in an affiliated Islamic School. After the arrests of the Elashis, the DCM hosted fundraising events for their legal defense. In 2008, Mr. Elibiary harshly criticized the Hamas terrorism financing convictions of the Holy Land Foundation defendants calling them a policy of denying our civil liberties: The U.S. government won a resounding court victory last Monday, convicting all the Palestinian HLF defendants on all material support charges leveled against them. Yet in the grand scheme of things, our governments policy of denying our civil liberties and privacy at home while pursuing a cold war containment policy that often turns into a hot war for regime change has left thousands of Americans dead, tens of thousands maimed, trillions of taxpayer dollars squandered and our homeland more vulnerable than ever. A myopic view might wish to celebrate the HLF verdict, but the big picture clearly shows a continuing loss for America. A 2005 report by the Center For Religious Freedom (CRF) found numerous examples of Saudi ideological material at the DCM (aka Richardson Mosque.)

Mohamed Magid

Mohamed Magid is the current President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and Executive Director of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society(ADAMS), both organizations part of the US Muslim Brotherhood. Imam Magid can be seen as the new more moderate face that ISNA has been cultivating of late and he has taken part in frequent interfaith events including visits to concentration camp sites in Europe. Nadia Roumani is the co-founder and director of the American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute (AMCLI) that describes itself as an organization that develops and trains American Muslim leaders who are committed to civic engagement. Of the 84 individuals that have participated in the AMCLI, there are a number who are associated with the US Muslim Brotherhood including Mohamed Elibiary. Not surprisingly, the DHS Working Groups recommendations attempt to redirect focus away from any connection between terrorism and Islamism, such as the variety promulgated by the Global Muslim Brotherhood recommending instead that the focus should be on stopping violent beh avior regardless of the motivation and that: discussions regarding how to improve local law enforcement crime reduction efforts should be delinked from the current academic and policy discussions on radicalization and countering violent extremism un til such time that the understanding of these phenomena matures. In 2008, the our predecessor publication presented an analysis that identified four conceptual categories into which Brotherhood positions on terrorism can usually be parsed. The GMBDR noted that this Muslim Brotherhood strategy

regarding terrorism should be seen for what it is, a remarkably consistent and internally coherent means of obscuring the true aims and goals of the group. The first category was explained as follows: 1. DENIAL- Since the Brotherhood is pursuing Islamization and eventually Shariah (Islamic Law), it is necessary at all costs to deny that Islam as a religion has any connection to violence or terrorism. Of course, the Brotherhood represents Islamism as opposed to Islam in this regard but since the general audience does not understand that distinction, it is Islam which is the Brotherhood reference. They cannot afford to fail in this denial and the denial strategy is usually pursued through sophistry. That is, the Brotherhood claims that Islam is unfairly associated with terrorism while Christianity, Judaism, and other religions are not (e.g. Abortion bombers are not called Christian Terrorists) and/or that other religious terrorism is just as dangerous as Islamic terrorism. The Brotherhood may be winning this battle (see here.)

At the current time, DHS maintains a Faith-based Security and Communications Advisory Committee whose members as of May 2012 included Mohamed Magid, identified above as the ISNA President, andIngrid Mattson, the former ISNA President. For part 1 of this story, go here.