Sunday, January 29, 2017

United Arab Emirates placed two US Muslim groups on terror list: CAIR and Muslim American Society. Along with Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State, and others-Nov. 11, 2014

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Nov. 15, 2014, "UAE Cabinet approves list of designated terrorist organisations, groups," Emirates News Agency, wam.ae, Dhabi

"The UAE Cabinet has approved a list of designated terrorist organisations and groups in implementation of Federal Law No. 7 for 2014 on combating terrorist crimes, issued by President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and the Cabinet's own resolution on the designation of terrorist organisations that provided for the publication of the lists in the media for the purposes of transparency and to raise awareness in society about these organisations.

The following is the list of  organisations designated as terrorist that has been approved by the Cabinet:

:: The UAE Muslim Brotherhood.

::  Al-Islah (or Da'wat Al-Islah). 

:: Fatah al-Islam (Lebanon).

::  Associazione Musulmani Italiani (Association of Italian Muslims).

:: Khalaya Al-Jihad Al-Emirati (Emirati Jihadist Cells).

:: Osbat al-Ansar (the League of the Followers) in Lebanon. 

:: The Finnish Islamic Association (Suomen Islam-seurakunta).

:: Alkarama organisation.

:: Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb  (AQIM or Tanzim al-Qa idah fi Bilad al-Maghrib al-Islami).

:: The Muslim Association of Sweden (Sveriges muslimska forbund, SMF)

:: Hizb al-Ummah (The Ommah Party or Nation's Party) in the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula

:: Ansar al-Sharia in Libya (ASL, Partisans of Islamic Law).

:: Det Islamske Forbundet i Norge (Islamic Association in Norway).

:: Al-Qaeda.

::  Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia (AST, Partisans of Sharia) in Tunisia.

:: Islamic Relief UK.

:: Dae'sh (ISIL).

:: Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (HSM) in Somalia ( Mujahideen Youth Movement)

:: The Cordoba Foundation (TCF) in Britian.

:: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

:: Boko Haraam ( Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'Awati Wal-Jihad) in Nigeria. 

::  Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) of the  Global Muslim Brotherhood.

:: Jama'at Ansar al-Shari'a (Partisans of Sharia) in Yemen. 

:: Al-Mourabitoun (The Sentinels) group in Mali.

:: Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (Taliban Movement of Pakistan).


:: Ansar al-Dine (Defenders of the faith) movement in Mali.

::  Abu Dhar al-Ghifari Battalion in Syria.

:: Jama'a Islamia in Egypt (AKA al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya, The Islamic Group, IG). 

:: The Haqqani Network in Pakistan. 

:: Al-Tawheed Brigade (Brigade of Unity, or Monotheism) in Syria. 

:: Ansar Bait al-Maqdis (ABM, Supporters of the Holy House or Jerusalem) and now rebranded as Wilayat Sinai (Province or state in the Sinai).

:: Lashkar-e-Taiba (Soldiers, or Army of the Pure, or of the Righteous).

:: Al-Tawhid wal-Eman battalion (Battalion of Unity, or Monotheism, and Faith) in Syria.

::  Ajnad Misr (Soldiers of Egypt) group.

:: The East Turkistan Islamic Movement in Pakistan (ETIM), AKA the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), Turkistan Islamic Movement (TIM).

:: Katibat al-Khadra in Syria (The Green Battalion). 

::  Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen Fi Aknaf Bayt al-Maqdis (the Mujahedeen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem, or MSC).

:: Jaish-e-Mohammed (The Army of Muhammad).

:: Abu Bakr Al Siddiq Brigade in Syria. 

:: The Houthi Movement in Yemen. 

::  Jaish-e-Mohammed (The Army of Muhammad) in Pakistan and India.

:: Talha Ibn 'Ubaid-Allah Compnay in Syria.

:: Hezbollah al-Hijaz in Saudi Arabia.

:: Al Mujahideen Al Honoud in Kashmor/ India (The Indian Mujahideen, IM).

:: Al Sarim Al Battar Brigade in Syria.

:: Hezbollah in the Gulf Cooperation Council.

::  Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus (Caucasus Emirate or Kavkaz and Chechen jidadists).

:: The Abdullah bin Mubarak Brigade in Syria. 

:: Al-Qaeda in Iran. 

:: The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).

:: Qawafil al-Shuhada (Caravans of the Martyrs).

:: The Badr Organisation in Iraq.

:: Abu Sayyaf Organisation in the Philippines.

:: Abu Omar Brigade in Syria.

:: Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq in Iraq (The Leagues of the Righteous).


:: Ahrar Shammar Brigade in Syria (Brigade of the free men of the Shammar Tribe).

:: Hezbollah Brigades in Iraq. 

:: CANVAS organisation in Belgrade, Serbia. 

:: The Sarya al-Jabal Brigade in Syria.

:: Liwa Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas in Syria.


:: Al Shahba' Brigade in Syria.

:: Liwa al-Youm al-Maw'oud in Iraq (Brigade of Judgment Day).

:: International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS).

:: Al Ka'kaa' Brigade in Syria. 

:: Liwa Ammar bin Yasser (Ammar bin Yasser Brigade).

::  Ansar al-Islam in Iraq.

:: Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe.

:: Sufyan Al Thawri Brigade.

:: Ansar al-Islam Group in Iraq (Partisans of Islam).

:: Union of Islamic Organisations of France (L'Union des Organisations Islamiques de France, UOIF).  

:: Ebad ar-Rahman Brigade (Brigade of Soldiers of Allah) in Syria.

:: Jabhat al-Nusra (Al-Nusra Front) in Syria. 

:: Muslim Association of Britain (MAB).

:: Omar Ibn al-Khattab Battalion in Syria.

:: Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham Al Islami (Islamic Movement of the Free Men of the Levant).

:: Islamic Society of Germany (Islamische Gemeinschaft Deutschland).

:: Al-Shayma' Battaltion in Syria.

:: Jaysh al-Islam in Palestine (The Army of Islam in Palestine)

:: The Islamic Society in Denmark (Det Islamiske Trossamfund, DIT).

:: Katibat al-Haqq (Brigade of the Righteous).

:  The Abdullah Azzam Brigades.

::  The League of Muslims in Belgium (La Ligue des Musulmans de Belgique, LMB)

 
WAM 2230  2014/11/15
END"

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VOA News:

11/17/2014, "UAE Includes 2 US Muslim Groups on Terror List," voanews.com

"The United Arab Emirates has included two U.S. Muslim organizations on its list of more than 80 terrorist movements worldwide.

The UAE named the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based group known as CAIR, as well as the Muslim American Society, in a list that also included al-Qaida, Islamic State, the Muslim Brotherhood and Boko Haram.

Neither CAIR nor the Muslim American Society is a designated terror group by the U.S. government. 

Their inclusion drew swift protests from the American groups. CAIR put out a statement that said it is seeking clarification on its "shocking and bizarre" inclusion on the list, while the Muslim American Society said that it had "no dealings with the United Arab Emirates" and was "perplexed by this news."

On Monday, the U.S. State Department said it would be seeking more information from the UAE."

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Added:  Earlier in 2014 Saudi Arabia also declared Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group:

11/15/14, "UAE lists Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist group," Reuters, Dubai

"The United Arab Emirates has formally designated the Muslim Brotherhood and local affiliates as terrorist groups, state news agency WAM reported on Saturday citing a cabinet decree....

Saturday's move echoes a similar move by Saudi Arabia in March and could increase pressure on Qatar whose backing for the group has sparked a row with fellow Gulf monarchies.

It also underscores concern...about political Islam and the influence of the Brotherhood, whose Sunni Islamist doctrines challenge the principle of dynastic rule....

So far efforts by members of the GCC, an alliance that also includes Oman and Kuwait, to resolve the dispute have failed.

The three states mainly fell out with Qatar over the role of Islamists, including the Muslim Brotherhood. Gulf officials say the three want Qatar to end any support for the Brotherhood."... 


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Added: UAE praised Saudi Arabia declaring Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group:

3/9/2014, "UAE backs Saudis with Muslim Brotherhood blacklist," AP, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

"The United Arab Emirates has thrown its support behind neighboring Saudi Arabia's decision to label the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, increasing Gulf Arab pressure on the Islamist group.

Saudi Arabia listed the 86-year-old Brotherhood along with several other groups, including Al Qaeda affiliates, as terrorist organizations on Friday. Those who join or support the groups could face five to 30 years in prison under the new Saudi policy. 

The Gulf moves against the Brotherhood follow an Egyptian decision to label it a terrorist organization in December. The move by the military-backed interim government in Cairo comes amid a crackdown on the group following its July ouster of the country's first elected president, the Islamist Mohammed Morsi....

The Western-allied UAE, a seven-state federation that includes the cosmopolitan business hub of Dubai, said it will cooperate with Saudi Arabia to tackle "those terrorist groups through liquidating all forms of material and moral support."

"The significant step taken by (Saudi Arabia) in this critical moment requires concerted efforts and joint collective work to address the security and stability challenges that threaten the destiny of the Arab and Muslim nation," the UAE said in a statement carried by official news agency WAM late Saturday. 

The Saudi terrorist designation also blacklisted Al Qaeda's branch in Yemen and its former affiliate in Iraq, the Syrian al-Nusra Front, Hezbollah within the kingdom and Yemen's Shiite Hawthis.

The Brotherhood condemned the Saudi move against it Friday as a "complete departure from the past relationship" with the kingdom and insisted that it does not interfere in matters of other nations.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the two largest Arab economies, have increasingly clamped down on the Brotherhood in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings.

They along with the tiny kingdom of Bahrain last week withdrew their ambassadors from nearby Qatar to protest what they saw as its failure to uphold a deal to stop interfering in other nations' politics and supporting organizations that threaten the Gulf's stability. Analysts say the move in large part reflects Qatar's support for the Brotherhood and its supporters.

The Emirates has jailed dozens of people allegedly linked to Brotherhood-affiliated groups on state security charges over the past year. It accuses Islamist groups of trying to topple its Western-backed ruling system.

The nation's top court last week sentenced a Qatari doctor to seven years and two Emiratis to five years in prison for collaborating with an illegal Islamist group. The same court in January convicted 30 men, most of them Egyptian, of setting up an illegal Brotherhood branch in the UAE. They received prison terms ranging from three months to five years.

Another 69 people were last year sentenced to up to 15 years behind bars after being convicted of links to Al-Islah, an Islamist group suspected of ideological ties to the Brotherhood."


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Added: 2004 Chicago Tribune article on growth of Muslim Brotherhood across the United States:
In 1962 the Muslim Brotherhood began operations in the US. "Over time, the Brotherhood gained notoriety for repeatedly attempting to overthrow the Egyptian and Syrian governments and for spawning violent groups, including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian group Hamas."

9/19/2004, "A rare look at secretive Brotherhood in America," Chicago Tribune, , Tribune staff reporters
"Over the last 40 years [since 1960s], small groups of devout Muslim men have gathered in homes in U.S. cities to pray, memorize the Koran and discuss events of the day.

But they also addressed their ultimate goal, one so controversial that it is a key reason they have operated in secrecy:
to create Muslim states
overseas and, they hope, someday in America as well.
These men are part of an underground U.S. chapter of the international Muslim Brotherhood, the world's most influential Islamic fundamentalist group and an organization with a violent past in the Middle East. But fearing persecution, they rarely identify themselves as Brotherhood members and have operated largely behind the scenes, unbeknown even to many Muslims.

Still, the U.S. Brotherhood has had a significant and ongoing impact on Islam in America, helping establish mosques, Islamic schools, summer youth camps and prominent Muslim organizations. It is a major factor, Islamic scholars say, in why many Muslim institutions in the nation have become more conservative in recent decades....

In recent years, the U.S. (Muslim) Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation's major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members.

Some wanted the Brotherhood to remain underground, while others thought a more public face would make the group more influential. Members from across the country drove to regional meeting sites to discuss the issue.

Former member Mustafa Saied recalls how he gathered with 40 others at a Days Inn on the Alabama-Tennessee border. Many members, he says, preferred secrecy, particularly in case U.S. authorities cracked down on Hamas supporters, including many Brotherhood members....


When the leaders voted, it was decided that Brotherhood members would call themselves the Muslim American Society, or MAS, according to documents and interviews.

They agreed not to refer to themselves as the Brotherhood but to be more publicly active. They eventually created a Web site and for the first time invited the public to some conferences, which also were used to raise money.... 

An undated internal memo instructed MAS leaders on how to deal with inquiries about the new organization. If asked, "Are you the Muslim Brothers?" leaders should respond that they are an independent group called the Muslim American Society. "It is a self-explanatory name that does not need further explanation."

And if the topic of terrorism were raised, leaders were told to say that they were against terrorism but that jihad was among a Muslim's "divine legal rights" to be used to defend himself and his people and to spread Islam.

But MAS leaders say those documents and others obtained by the Tribune are either outdated or do not accurately reflect the views of the group's leaders. 


MAS describes itself as a "charitable, religious, social, cultural and educational not-for-profit organization." It has headquarters in Alexandria, Va., and 53 chapters nationwide, including one in Bridgeview, across the street from the mosque there....
MAS collected $2.8 million in dues and donations in 2003--more than 10 times the amount in 1997, according to Internal Revenue Service filings.

Spending often is aimed at schools, teachers and children, the filings show. The group has conducted teacher training programs, issued curriculum guides and established youth centers. It also set up Islamic American University, largely a correspondence school with an office in suburban Detroit, to train teachers and preachers.

Until 18 months ago, the university's chairman was Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a prominent cleric in Qatar and a spiritual figure of the Brotherhood who has angered many in the West by praising suicide bombers in Israel and Iraq. The U.S. government has barred him from entering the country since late 1999. He says that action was taken after he praised Palestinian militants.

In the Chicago area, MAS has sponsored summer camps for teenagers. Shahzeen Karim, 19, says a camp in Bridgeview inspired her to resume covering her hair in the Islamic tradition.

"We were praying five times a day," Karim says. "It was like a proper Islamic environment. It brought me back to Islam." 
At a summer camp last year in Wisconsin run by the Chicago chapter of MAS, teens received a 2-inch-thick packet of material that included a discussion of the Brotherhood's philosophy and detailed instructions on how to win converts.

Part of the Chicago chapter's Web site is devoted to teens. It includes reading materials that say Muslims have a duty to help form Islamic governments worldwide and should be prepared to take up arms to do so.

One passage states that "until the nations of the world have functionally Islamic governments, every individual who is careless or lazy in working for Islam is sinful." Another one says that Western secularism and materialism are evil and that Muslims should "pursue this evil force to its own lands" and "invade its Western heartland."... 


Brotherhood has grown in influence

The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt more than seven decades ago, is among the most powerful political forces in the Islamic world today.

1928: The Muslim Brotherhood is formed in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna to promote a return to fundamental Islamic beliefs and practices and to fight Western colonialism in the Islamic world.


Late 1930s: The Brotherhood starts forming affiliated chapters in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria.

1948: The Brotherhood is implicated in the assassination of Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmud Nuqrashi, who had banned the group. Al-Banna denies involvement.

1949: The Egyptian government retaliates for Nuqrashi's assassination by killing al-Banna.

1954: A Brotherhood member tries to assassinate Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and fails. Nasser executes several of the group's leaders and incarcerates thousands of its followers.


1962: The Cultural Society is created as the first Brotherhood organization in the United States. Society members help establish numerous Islamic organizations, mosques and schools.

1966: Sayyid Qutb, a Brotherhood ideologue who urged Muslims to take up arms against non-Islamic governments, is executed by Nasser's regime.

1982: In Hamah, Syria, at least 10,000 people are killed by government troops suppressing an uprising by the Brotherhood.

1993: The Muslim American Society, initially based in Illinois and now in Virginia
, is created to be a more public face of the Brotherhood in the U.S.

2001: The U.S. names Brotherhood member Youssef Nada and his Swiss based investment network, allegedly established with backing from the Brotherhood, as terrorist financiers. Nada denies any terrorist links.

2002: Tens of thousands of Brotherhood supporters fill the streets of Cairo during a funeral for group leader Mustafa Mashhour on Nov. 15. 

2003: U.S. authorities investigating alleged terrorism funding describe Virginia businessman Soliman Biheiri as the Brotherhood's "financial toehold" in the U.S. Biheiri denies any terrorist links.


2004: The Egyptian government rounds up dozens of Brotherhood supporters, freezes members' assets and ousts one of its backers from parliament."

"Tribune foreign correspondent Evan Osnos, staff reporter Stephen Franklin and Hossam el-Hamalawy contributed to this report." 
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More on UAE, CAIR, and MAS:

11/17/2014, "UAE Designates CAIR, MAS as Terrorist Groups," Breitbart, Leahy

"The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) cabinet approved a comprehensive list of 83 designated terrorist organizations Saturday, the WAM Emirates News Agency reports. The list includes various al-Qaeda affiliates and the Islamic State. 

But the UAE also considers the Muslim Brotherhood and some of its global affiliates as terrorist organizations. The list includes the Council on American-Islamic Relations(CAIR) and the Muslim American Society (MAS). 

The UAE action follows a decision last spring to follow Saudi Arabia’s decision to label the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.... 

The Muslim American Society (MAS) also serves as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in America. A 2004 Chicago Tribune story describes how MAS was formed as the Brotherhood’s U.S. arm after a debate about whether to stay underground. In 2012 testimony, Abdurahman Alamoudi, once the most politically influential Islamist activist in the country, said the connection between MAS and the Brotherhood was well known in Islamist circles. 

CAIR’s standard response to criticism, and to questions about its roots in a Muslim Brotherhood-created Hamas support network, is to accuse the source of “Islamophobia.”"...

 
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