Islamists with Direct Ties to Terrorists Lobby Congress

Introduction

For the past three years, Islamists with ties to terrorist operatives have been meeting with members of Congress. Every spring since 2015, the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), a coalition of national and local Islamist organizations has hosted an annual lobbying event titled “Muslim Advocacy Day” in Congress, at the Capitol Visitor Center’s Auditorium. Over the course of several days, Islamists from across the United States visit congressional offices to lobby for their national and international agendas.

The next Muslim Advocacy is scheduled to take place on May 7-8, 2018.

The annual event is a serious lobbying effort. The 2017 lobby day, hosted by the USCMO and Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), connected national, regional and state Islamist organizations and community members with their elected representatives in Congress. CAIR reported that 400 delegates from 30 states had met with some 230 elected officials and congressional staff.

Among the delegates at the 2017 Muslim Advocacy Day were many Muslim Brotherhood leaders directly linked to violent Islamists? USCMO’s own leadership includes an Islamist once accused by the U.S. government of funding terrorism conducted by al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Several leaders in the delegation have elsewhere hosted Muslim Brotherhood operatives convicted of terrorism by a U.S. ally.

The Muslim Brotherhood in America clearly defined its goals in a 1991 document titled “The Explanatory Memorandum,” which outlined the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategic goals in North America. Federal prosecutors introduced this memorandum as evidence during the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) terror financing trial in 2008—the largest terror financing case in U.S. history. The memorandum discussed what the Brotherhood calls Amalia Jihadiya Hadaria (“Civilizational Jihad Operation”). According to the Brotherhood, the Civilizational Jihad Operation means “destroying the Western civilization from within, and sabotaging its miserable house.”

The Muslim Brotherhood-organized “Muslim Advocacy Day” on Capitol Hill is part of this effort, as Islamists seek to exert influence within the People’s House to further their totalitarian agenda. They have already had some success: USCMO’s leadership claimed responsibility for improving relations between then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood. The U.S. has failed to understand what our allies in the Middle East already know: the Muslim Brotherhood poses a serious threat.

USCMO was founded in 2014, according to its website, by eight American Islamist organizations:

• American Muslims for Palestine (AMP)

• Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

• Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)

• The Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA)

• The Muslim American Society (MAS)

• Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA)

• Muslim Ummah of North America (MUNA)

• The Mosque Cares

One of these groups, CAIR, was labeled by federal prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator during the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) terror-finance trial, because of its pervasive ties to the Muslim Brotherhood’s “Palestine Committee,” which was established in 1988 to support the terrorist group Hamas. ICNA, meanwhile, has been linked to terrorist organizations in South Asia, and AMP is widely considered to be part of Hamas’s network in the U.S.

It should not come as a surprise, then, that the USCMO officials and delegates taking part in its “Muslim Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill” event include Islamist operatives with links to extremism and terror.

USCMO’s Most Dangerous Islamists: Oussama Jammal

Oussama Jammal is the General Secretary of USCMO. He is also the director of the Muslim American Society - Public Affairs and Civic Engagement (MAS-PACE), a division of the Muslim American Society (MAS), which is a prominent American Islamist group identified in court testimony as a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Jammal is also the Vice President of the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, IL (also known as the Bridgeview Mosque), which has a long history of connections to terrorism. In the mid-1980s, according to the Chicago Tribune, Abdullah Azzam, Osama bin Laden’s spiritual mentor, visited the mosque and recruited three men to support the fight in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. In 2003, Jammal raised $50,000 at a Mosque Foundation prayer service for terror operative Sami al-Arian, the North American representative of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Since then, the Mosque Foundation has continued to host terrorist operatives. In October 2012, the Mosque Foundation hosted an official delegation of Muslim Brotherhood operatives and leaders of al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya (JI), the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. According to Ra’fat Fahad Murra, a prominent Lebanese expert on the Muslim Brotherhood, JI was closely involved with the father of modern jihad, Abdallah Azzam, a founding member of Al Qaeda. In the late 1970s, Azzam reportedly trained youth for jihad in collaboration with JI. More recently, JI leaders have been in direct communication with Hamas and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

The delegation to Jammal’s Mosque Foundation included the head of JI’s office in Lebanon, Azzam Ayoubi, as well as JI’s representative in the Lebanese parliament, Imad al-Hout. Al-Hout stated on his official website that he and Ayoubi were accompanied by an Imam from the Mosque Foundation, Kifah Moustafa, also known as Kifah el-Mera’bi. In 2013 Moustafa was fired from his job with the Illinois State Police, after police found video in which he “chants terrorist lyrics and children are seen with guns.”

Lebanese newspaper Assafir reported on JI’s visit to the United States in an article titled, “JI in the U.S.: Changing the Strategy of Confrontation with America.” The newspaper reported that the two JI leaders met with “Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Chicago and Milwaukee,” and participated in an international conference in New Jersey titled “Challenges of Islamic Work in America.”

 Both Jammal and Ayaoubi are also linked closely to the Islamist regime in Turkey. In 2014, both Oussama Jammal and Azzam Ayoubi attended Turkish president Recep Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) Convention.

JI representatives were not the only extremists invited to Jammal’s Mosque Foundation. In 2012 and 2013, the Mosque Foundation also hosted Amjad Qourshah, a Jordanian Islamist imprisoned in Jordan in 2016 for promoting jihadist propaganda.

 In his lectures, Qourshah has stated that some members of ISIS might be decent men and that it would be wrong to condemn all of them.

Qourshah also hinted that the ISIS leadership might be connected with the U.S. and Israel, stating: “Often, there may be leaders of parties, or leaders of groups, who have contacts with the intelligence agencies, the CIA, Mossad, global intelligence, using them in a very big plan, while 90% of those underneath do not know about it.”

Despite these extremist connections, Jamma and USCMO have long enjoyed access to senior government officials. In August 2017, Jammal posted an Elaph article on his Twitter  account claiming credit for “opening the relationship” between Rex Tillerson’s State Department and Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood.

 The article stated that USCMO, CAIR, and AMP had met with high-ranking State Department officials. An unnamed member of the Islamist delegation stated that they are “always in communication [with the State Department] in regard to issues that interest the Muslim community.”

Mazen Mokhtar

Mazen Mokhtar is an Egyptian-born Islamist, board member of USCMO, and the executive director of the Muslim American Society (MAS), a Muslim Brotherhood front organization. Mokhtar is among the organizers of USCMO’s annual lobbying event on Capitol Hill.

Mokhtar has also been accused of fundraising for al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In August 2004, the U.S. government accused Mokhtar of operating the website www.minna.com, which was a mirror site of www.azzam.com (Azzam publications), named after Osama Bin Laden’s mentor Abdullah Azzam. The site solicited funds and recruited Taliban, Chechen and al-Qaeda terrorists.

The arrest warrant for terror suspect Babar Ahmad, who operated the azzam.com website, stated that Ahmad worked and conspired with the U.S. operator of www.minna.com to solicit donations to terror groups and to post instructions on how to donate the funds.

Mokhtar was arrested in 2007 and charged with tax fraud, which commentators speculated would be used as an entry point for further terrorism charges. But thenU.S. Attorney Chris Christie dropped the charges in 2008 without explanation, allowing Mokhtar to go free.

Today, Mokhtar continues to raise funds for Islamic Relief USA (IRUSA), which is linked to front groups for Hamas. In 2014, the United Arab Emirates designated both Mokhtar’s MAS and IRUSA as terrorist organizations

USCMO’s Event Invited a Muslim Brotherhood Group Linked to Terrorism to Lobby Congress

On May 2, 2017, a Muslim-Brotherhood-affiliated organization named Egyptian Americans for Freedom and Justice (EAFAJ) was among the groups lobbying Congress during USCMO and CAIR’s Muslim Advocacy Day.

EAFAJ had posted a flyer on its Facebook page, announcing its members’ planned meetings with Congress to deliver a report that would “expose the crimes of Egypt’s current military regime against its own Egyptian people.”

According to Egypt’s Youm el-Sabe newspaper, the report referred to members of a terrorist cell from the village of Arab Sharkas as “victims of the Egyptian regime.”

 This is typical doublespeak from EAFAJ. Its members make an effort to cite liberal, democratic values when it communicates with Western politicians. But in private, they express extremist and pro-terror rhetoric.

At a November 2016 EAFAJ event, for instance, extremist imam Mohamed Elbar declared that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi “ought to be beheaded.” On his own Facebook page, Elbar has stated proudly several times that he is the brother of a Muslim Brotherhood jihadist Mufti, Abdel Rahman Elbar, who is currently in prison in Egypt following a terrorism conviction.

 The EAFAJ delegation to the 2017 Muslim Advocacy Day included activists who identify as members and affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood. These are profiles of EAFAJ’s most dangerous operatives:

Hani Elkadi

Hani Elkadi is the President of Egyptian Americans for Freedom and Justice (EAFAJ). He is originally from Egypt and currently lives in New Jersey. Elkadi led the EAFAJ’s delegation to Congress during USCMO and CAIR’s “Muslim National Advocacy Day” on Capitol Hill in 2017. He is referred to38 in Arabic media as “a Muslim Brotherhood leader in the U.S.”

 On his Facebook page, he frequently addresses members of the Muslim Brotherhood as if a leader in the organization. In one such post, Elkadi writes:

My beloved Ikhwan [Brotherhood] youth, among the most dangerous tactics of our conniving enemy is fighting the Da’wah [Islamic proselytism] by striking it from the inside. And the best of what follows from that is mistrust between a soldier and his leader. When trust is lost, the meaning of obedience is shaken in their souls, and when obedience is lost, there is no longer a leadership or organization. So let the brothers, the sons of Da’wah, beware of the satanic whispers, such that they think of resisting the leadership, and denouncing it and its decisions. It is proof of their place and the depth of their understanding. For Satan has used them to divide the ranks, whether they are conscious of it or not. These people will ask: Isn’t religion advice? Yes, but with its conditions.

In February 2015, Elkadi shared a communiqué by a Facebook page in support of the Popular Resistance Movement (PRM), which has carried out Figure 14: Hani Elkadi Hani Elkadi Figure 15: On October 14, 2016, Hani Elkadi posted an address to Muslim Brotherhood youth Figure 16: Hani Elkadi shared a communiqué by a Facebook page in support of the Popular Resistance Movement (PRM). Numerous terrorist attacks and police killings in Egypt.

Elkadi routinely posts anti-Semitic and jihadist propaganda, literature and speeches by Islamist ideologues on his Facebook account. For example, in October 2017, quoting the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan el-Banna, Elkadi wrote “We are totally prepared to endure the onsequences of our work, no matter what they are. We will not put the consequences before anyone besides us... We know that what is with Allah is better and more lasting, and that being obliterated in the path of truth is the essence of eternal life, and that there is no Da’wah without jihad, and there is no jihad without persecution. Only then the hour of victory draws near, and the time of victory arrives.”

On April 30, 2016, Elkadi posted a picture of jihadi ideologue Sayyed Qutb in prison, which included the text: “These Arab militaries in front of you are not there to defend Islam or Muslims, they are there to kill you and they would never fire a single bullet at Jews. The Martyr Sayyed Qutb, may Allah bless his soul.” Elkadi commented: “This is the truth, unfortunately.”

Elkadi and the EAFAJ leadership are also closely related to a Muslim-Brotherhood group called the Egyptian Revolutionary Council (ERC). Established in late 2014 in Istanbul, Turkey, the ERC has called for terrorist attacks in Egypt. For example, on June 14, 2017, the ERC advocated jihad40 in the Gulf of Aqaba in a statement on its official Facebook page. It called on Egyptians living in the cities overlooking the Red Sea to “struggle to liberate” the Islands and the Gulf of Aqaba, and to treat them as “occupied territories.” The statement also urged citizens to “treat all Saudi companies and institutions as occupying forces.”

The ERC and Elkadi are also linked to convicted Egyptian terrorist Sheikh Mohamed Abdel Maksoud, who currently lives in Turkey. In 2016, Abdel Maksoud was sentenced to life in prison in Egypt for his involvement in a 2013 terrorist attack, in which two people were killed and seven injured. Abdel Maksoud openly encourages violence. In 2015, for example, he issued a Fatwa stating it was permissible to kill Egyptian police officers and set their property on fire.

 In September 2017, Elkadi and another EAFAJ member, Ayat Oraby, shared a panel at a Muslim Brotherhood conference in Turkey with Maksoud, along with the prominent Egyptian Islamist Wagdy Ghoneim. The Daily Telegraph has reported that “Ghoneim has praised Osama bin Laden as a ‘hero and martyr’ and was recorded leading audiences in anti-Semitic songs with the chorus ‘No to the Jews, descendants of the apes.’” Ghoneim has also justified ISIS’s burning alive of the Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh. Both Ghoneim and Maksoud are designated terrorists in Egypt.

On his Facebook page, Elkadi routinely posts pictures of himself with Muslim Brotherhood leaders. These include former Egyptian judge and state security officer Waleed Sharaby, as well as former Muslim-Brotherhood Member of Parliament Gamal Heshmat. Both Sharaby and Heshmat have been designated terrorists by the Egyptian government. According to Elkadi’s Facebook page, he routinely meets with both individuals.

Mahmoud Elsharkawy

Mahmoud Elsharkawy, an Egyptian-born resident of New York City, was among the EAFAJ delegation to Congress at USMCO’s 2017 Muslim Advocacy Day. Elsharkawy has annually participated in the USMCO event since it began. He serves as the public relations officer and spokesman of EAFAJ. Egyptian media also describes Elsharkawy as a Muslim Brotherhood leader.

On December 18, 2015, Elsharkawy expressed his support for the Muslim Brotherhood’s embrace of violence:

God Almighty has willed that the Muslim Brotherhood organization should go through a path of rebirth. A year and half ago, it started to follow the path of Hamas. I think the third founding of the Muslim Brotherhood has publically emerged today, which means that the banner of jihad will topple any other. The resistance will strike the forts of tyrants. The desire of our youth to raise the banner and refuse submission has been heeded. Now, it is time for the early great leaders and mentors to leave the leadership of the field of revolution to the youth who have not been absent from it.

On May 17, 2015 Elsharkawy called for Jihad and praised the Arab Sharkas terrorist cell:

Oh revolutionaries, let’s revive the absent obligation, let’s revive jihad, if the criminals are persistent in the path of killing young people and carrying out executions. So where are we—myself included—from our pact with Allah? The path of the believers is not easy. We all know that, for it is not laden with roses. Truth requires force, so be the force. Your knowledge is power, your money is power, your time is power, your prayer is power. The resistance pains them and shakes their world and you know it. Let’s start surprising them. We should be initiators and not reactionaries. By God, by God, they are weak, submissive and they are terrified of you. Our initiative should be well-calculated and well-studied, let’s avoid any impulsive actions that can do more harm than good and lead to more losses than gains. Revive faith in your hearts, and know that Allah will bestow victory upon his soldiers. Our martyrs are blissful in heaven. By Allah we ask that we should join them, not turning away in flight.

Elsharkawy’s statement was followed by the hashtag: “#Arab_Sharkas” and “Shouhad’a_Arab_Sharkas_Fi’l_Janaah” (“Arab Sharkas martyrs are in heaven”).

On May 18, 2015 Elsharkawy posted a tribute to the Arab Sharkas terrorist cell and said the group “revives in us the meaning of jihad.”

On February 3, 2016, Elsharkway posted a picture of accused ISIS terrorist Abdel Rahman Said, mourning his execution and praising him as a hero and martyr. According to Egyptian media, Abdel Rahman Said was an ISIS operative who has even featured in an ISIS propaganda video.

 Elsharkawy also celebrated an assassination attempt against Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, about which he commented: “Allahu Akbar and thank God.”

In April 2017, Elsharkawy mourned the death of Mohammed Adel Balboula, a member of the Hasm terrorist group in Egypt. Balboula was killed in a gunfight with police attempting to arrest him for killing a security guard the previous month.

Despite this open support for terrorism, Elsharkawy is also an activist in local New York politics. He has posted several pictures of himself with New York mayor Bill de Blasio and Congressman John Faso.

Yahya Almontaser

Yahya Almontaser is a New York City-based activist and part of the EAFAJ delegation at USCMO’s Muslim Advocacy Day in 2017. Almontaser is from a prominent Muslim Brotherhood family in Yemen. On August 17, 2016, Yahya Almontaser posted a picture mourning the assassination of his uncle Saleh Ahmed al-Anhami,50 a Muslim Brotherhood leader and prominent Yemeni politician [Figure 36].

Yahya Almontaser does not hide his extremism. He has posted pictures of the Black Standard, an Islamic flag used by jihadists. One picture [Figure 38] contains the jihadist slogan, “Let’s raise the flag of the prophet of Allah, one banner, one nation, one state.”

 Yahya Almontaser regularly supports violence on his Facebook page. On December 15, 2013, Almontaser posted a picture with a quote by Abdullah Azzam, a founding member of al Qaeda: “If you want to liberate a nation load your gun with ten bullets, nine for the traitors and one for the enemy. If it weren’t for traitors within, the outside enemies wouldn’t dare to approach you.”

Almontaser added his own comment: “And homelands have not been occupied except because of the traitors in the past and present.”

Yahya Almontaser and ISIS Operative Mohamed Sayed Taha

Almontaser is also directly linked to a self-identified ISIS member and convicted terrorist Mohamed Sayed Taha, who is currently imprisoned51 in Egypt for attempting to bomb the Police Academy in Cairo, and other terrorist attacks. Almontaser was in contact with Taha on numerous occasions over the course of several years.

 Taha has referred to himself as an ISIS member on his own Facebook page [Figure 43]. On July 25, 2015, for example, Taha posted: “An analyst at Harvard University: Washington will soon have to come to terms with ISIS. We agree but with conditions, give us all Rome, all of the Arab world, wipe the Jewish nation from existence, and finally, give us back Andalusia. But our most important condition: You do it all while you’re humiliated. We are after glory, gentlemen.”

Taha regularly glorified terrorism and assassinations. On July 24, 2015, Taha posted a picture containing the text: “Terrorism is a religious obligation, and assassination is Sunnah.”

The relationship between Taha and Almontaser appears to have been more than mere online acquaintances. For several years, Taha referred to Yahya Almontaser as Ustadhi, Arabic for “teacher” or “mentor.” Almontaser was the only individual addressed with this title on Taha’s Facebook page.

In 2013, Taha posted a picture of jihadist insignia [Figure 46]. Almontaser commented: “Don’t exhaust yourself Mohamed, one of the hardest things is try to explain things to those who don’t understand, and free those who are addicted to being enslaved. Criminals and enemies of the Egyptian people, both foreign and domestic, killed the old Egyptian revolution. There has to be a new revolution on those who killed the first one.”

Taha replied: “You’re right Ustadhi Almontaser, I was wrong when I tried to convince them, They are deaf, mute and blind. We wish to have you here in Egypt when we celebrate our victory, Allah willing. ell me Ustadhi, how are things in New York?”

 Almontaser repeatedly encouraged and endorsed Taha’s views. When Taha posted his own picture next to a picture of Egyptian terrorist Mahmoud el-Ghandour, who joined ISIS in Syria, Almontaser commented: “You’re both glowing.”

Taha also published numerous posts about his desire to become a martyr. On January 24, 2014, Taha posted a picture with the text: “Tomorrow I might be a martyr, pray for me.” [Figure 48] Almontaser approved. He replied the following day: “This is the wish of every believer, may Allah extend your life, and fill your heart and ours with the joy of resounding victory over the killers, Amen.”

On July 28, 2015, Taha published his last post to his Facebook account. He posted a picture of himself, and tagged Yahya Almontaser and others. Taha wrote that he was sorry for, “what he was about to do” [Figure 49]. In response, Almomtaser expressed his love and support [Figure 50].

Taha stated: “You all need to know, that I am sorry for what I am about to do. Allah knows I am compelled to do it, like everything else in my life. … I will deactivate my account in one day. If any of you has a request, please share it, I am all ears. Today, I take your orders, not give them. But please [understand] I have only one day and then I will completely disappear from your pages. If you need anything from me, please tell me quickly. Good bye.”

The next day, Almontaser replied: “I love you, in Allah, whom you made us love. I ask Allah to grant you success, rectitude, and perseverance for the truth, and we ask Allah to choose for you what’s best for your religion and your world, Amen.”

This was indeed Mohamed Sayed Taha’s last Facebook post. Sometime after this post Taha was arrested and he is now in prison in Egypt on terrorism charges.

Last April, Egypt’s Dostor newspaper published54 an exclusive article about Egypt’s most famous ISIS case, known as “Qadiat Daesh al-Kubra” [ISIS’s Big Case]. According to the court documents, 170 terrorists were arrested and convicted for connections to ISIS-related terrorist attacks and activities, including fighting in Syria and Sinai, and an attempt to bomb the police academy in Cairo. According to Dostor, Mohamed Sayed Taha’s name appears among those arrested in the “Beni Suef ISIS terrorist cell.” Copies of the original case documents, which were published by Dostor, list Taha’s name and hometown.

Osama Hassan

Osama Hassan is a cleric who was among the EAFAJ delegation at USCMO and CAIR’s “Muslim Advocacy Day” on Capitol Hill in 2017. Hassan is originally from Egypt and currently lives in Jersey City. He serves as the Director of Islamic Center of Jersey City (ICJC), which, according to its website, is affiliated with the Muslim American Society (MAS), ICNA Relief, and Islamic Relief USA – three prominent American Islamist organizations. Hassan is described56 in Egyptian media as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

 On his Facebook page, Hassan has expressed support for Omar Abdel-Rahman (also known as the Blind Sheikh), the mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. On February 18, 2017, following Abdel-Rahman’s death, Osama Hassan posted a video of an Islamic sermon given by the Blind Sheikh, and commented: “God rest his soul, I never missed [an opportunity to] pray behind him during dawn and evening prayers, I don’t need any Quranic interpretation after listening to his prayer.”

Osama Hassan was also among other EAFAJ members who mourned the Arab Sharkas terrorist cell, which, according to Egyptian media, fought in Syria with ISIS and was affiliated with the Egyptian jihadist group Ansar Bait al-Maqdis.

Farghal Ali

Farghal Ali is an extremist imam who runs the ICJC’s al-Ghazali school for children. In a Friday sermon58 given on May 6, 2016 at the ICJC mosque, Ali encouraged his listeners to help defend the city of Aleppo, under attack from “the infidel Rafidites [Shiites], the atheist communists, the hateful Crusaders, and the evil vipers from the Jews.”

 In the same speech, Ali stated:

The traitor rulers of the Muslims have sold honor, homeland, religion and nobility, and have aligned with the enemies of the Ummah against its principles, religion and dignity.

The infidel criminal Putin is killing Muslims...now they [the Russians] have returned to kill and cleanse the Muslims in Aleppo, in union with the infidel Rafidite Shi’a who say ‘when we destroy Aleppo, then we will go to Mecca.’

You need to fulfil your duty: each one of us has a duty towards Aleppo, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt. The land of Islam is losing one country after another while the Muslims are negligent...each one of us has a duty to do his utmost to fulfil the foundations of Islam and defend Muslims and not to wait for the international community or human rights and this empty talk.

Indeed it is a hateful, Crusader war, a hateful, communist, infidel war on Muslims.”

May Allah make the mujahideen victorious.

Omar Awad

Omar Awad was one of the ten EAFAJ delegates at USCMO’s Muslim Advocacy Day. According to his Facebook account, he is a resident of Belleville, New Jersey. Awad is described as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Arabic media.

Awad is also the CEO of Islamic Center of Passaic County. The Imam at Awad’s Islamic Center is Mohammad Qatanani, who is also closely associated with EAFAJ and appears in numerous pictures with its leadership. He is often a featured speaker at EAFAJ events.

Mohammad Qatanani

On November 22, 2015, Mohammed Qatanani mourned female terrorist Ashraqat Qatanani, whom he identified as his niece [Figure 60], and asked Allah to “accept her as a martyr.” Ashraqat was shot and killed in 2015 while trying to stab Israelis61 near Itamar.

According to an interview with Ashraqat Qatanani’s father, one of his other children (and Mohammad Qatarnani’s nephew), Ahmed el-Khadraj, performed a stabbing operation in the West Bank and surrendered himself to security. Mohammed’s other nephew, Hossam el-Qatanani, is reportedly serving an 11-year sentence in prison for shooting Israelis.

Ayat Oraby

Ayat Oraby is a New York-based Muslim Brotherhood activist, who was also part of the EAFAJ delegation at USCMO’s 2017 Muslim Advocacy Day.

 According to Oraby’s personal Twitter account, she is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Egyptian Revolutionary Council (ERC).

Oraby commonly refers to President Sisi as a “murtad,” meaning an apostate from Islam. She frequently calls for terrorist attacks against the Egyptian army, which she calls “Mi-Israeli army” a derogatory term [playing off the Arabic term for “Egyptian,” misri] popular among Islamists. Last April she said that the execution of Egyptian soldiers in Sinai was “funny, comical, and amusing.” She condemned the military for “killing Muslims on behalf of the Zionist enemy.” Discussing a video of the execution of Egyptian soldiers, she said, while laughing, that “militants were catching them like flies.”

Oraby also frequently celebrates terrorist attacks against Jews in Israel. On her official Facebook page, she mourned the death of Palestinian terrorist Siham Nimr, who was killed last March after trying to stab Israeli police officers.

 In 2016, Oraby launched a high-profile campaign calling on Egyptian Muslims to boycott Christian-owned businesses. In a September 2016 video68 which launched her campaign, she called the Coptic church “a gang” and “full-fledged mafia,” while describing Coptic Pope Tawadros as a “criminal.” Oraby claims69 to have been questioned by the FBI about the content of her Facebook page.

Islamist lobbying of lawmakers is a dire problem that goes beyond “Muslim Advocacy Day”

Islamist organizations in the United States affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood repeatedly portray terrorists and jihadists as “victims.”

In 2017, for example, a Washington based organization called the Alliance of Egyptian Americans (AEA) brought an Egyptian convicted terrorist, New Jersey resident and Muslim Brotherhood operative named Ahmed AbdelBasit Mohamed, also known as Almohager, to meet with members of congress [Figure 64].

Mohamed is a physics teacher at the Rising Star Academy, a school founded by the Islamic Education Center of North Hudson NJ, according to the academy’s website.

 Mohamed was sentenced to death in Egypt along with seven others implicated in several terrorist attacks in Egypt in the largest Muslim Brotherhood terrorism case in Egypt, known as Qadiyat Ligan el-Amaliat al-Mutaqadima (the case of Progressive Operations Committee). The case is named after a Muslim Brotherhood committee founded by one of the Brotherhood’s military operations leaders, Mohammed Kamal (a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Guidance Office), and former Brotherhood MP Gamal Heshmat. Mohammed Kamal was killed in 2016 when he shot at police trying to arrest him for his role in the assassination of the country’s top prosecutor, Hisham Barakat.

Egyptian investigators accused Mohamed of playing a key role in the terrorism activities of the Progressive Operations Committee (POC). According to Shorouk News, the Egyptian government accused Mohamed of using Muslim Brotherhood funds for the purchase of arms, ammunition and bomb-making equipment, as well as facilitating the travel of members of the POC terrorist cell to Turkey and Syria to receive jihadist training, which reportedly included firearms training and lessons to manufacture bombs and improvised explosive devices, under the supervision of the Aknaf Bait al-Maqdis terror group.

Mohamed has also been pictured with Brotherhood leader Safwat Hegazy, who, in 2011, during an Al-Jazeera interview, admitted76 to torturing a man he suspected was a police officer.

On April 6, 2018, Al-Jazeera reported that Mohamed was arrested in the United States, after his asylum application was rejected. Al-Jazeera also called upon activists in American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to pressure the government to turn it into a “a human rights case.” Just a few days before his arrest, Mohamed was on a panel with EAFAJ President Hani Elkadi discussing their objections to Egypt’s Presidential elections.

Conclusion and Recommendations:

1. Congressional cooperation with the Muslim Advocacy Day event needs to be terminated, pending a terrorism investigation. Congressional offices are advised to refuse meetings and call for an investigation into USCMO and its eight founding organizations.

2. The U.S. Department of Justice should consider compelling USCMO and its affiliated organizations to register under The Foreign Agents Registration Act80 (FARA) of 1938.

3. USCMO and EAFAJ appear to serve as the Muslim Brotherhood’s representatives in the U.S. The American Muslim Brotherhood is under the full and direct command of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Guidance Bureau, which sets their agenda and dictates their assignments. This has been acknowledged by the Director of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s Foreign Office, Ahmed Abdel Rahman, who, in an interview with Al-Jazeera, stated: “we have ideological and strategic organizations abroad, we have political organizations and centers, and we have foreign relations institutions.” Rahman confirmed that “all activities of the Muslim Brotherhood abroad,” such as protests and demonstrations, “are carried out through the office, and only by permission of the office.” Rahman also confirmed that Muslim Brotherhood representatives have met with politicians and lawmakers from across the world.

4. The Muslim Brotherhood is responsible82 for almost a century of terror. The Brotherhood’s founder Hassan el-Banna organized the intimidation and harassment of moderate Muslims and set Christians’ property on fire. Later, the Brotherhood established the Hamas terrorist organization as its Palestinian wing. Three Brotherhood activists, Abdallah Azzam, Osama Bin Laden and Ayman el-Zawahiri, established al-Qaeda. Brotherhood leaders, from inside their prisons, founded the terrorist groups al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Brotherhood members in Jordan recruited Abu Musab el-Zarqawi, the founder of Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad, who started the trend of video decapitations, and one of its former operatives Abu Bakr el-Baghdadi is now the self-proclaimed caliph of the Islamic State. The Brotherhood also has other connections to organizations on the U.S. government’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.

 5. By allowing the Muslim Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill to continue, the United States government is legitimizing extremism. Allowing Islamist extremists, affiliated with terror groups that terrorize and kill Muslims worldwide, to represent the American Muslim community is a betrayal of moderate Muslims everywhere, and impedes the efforts of Muslim activists working to stamp out extremism in their communities.

 6. Normalizing relations between lawmakers and Islamists from USCMO, CAIR, and AMP is dangerous. It is not in the U.S. nationalsecurity interest to be advised and lobbied by members of groups who have links with jihadists. U.S. intelligence agencies should investigate Oussama Jammal and these Islamist organizations’ role in influencing State Department officials and hosting supporters of foreign terrorist organizations in American Muslim institutions. Additionally, the previous law enforcement investigation into USCMO board member Mazen Mokhtar’s reported fundraising for al-Qaeda and the Taliban should be reopened; and the U.S. government should investigate EAFAJ’s officials and activists.

 7. The recurring problem of terror-linked Muslim Brotherhood operatives lobbying Congress will continue until the Muslim Brotherhood is officially designated as a terrorist organization in the United States.