In a recent development, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has declared that the United States is making strides towards officially recognizing the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.
This announcement was made during Rubio's interview with Sid Rosenberg on the radio show, Sid and Friends in the Morning.
The topic of the Muslim Brotherhood's potential terrorist designation arose when Rosenberg questioned Rubio about the support that New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is receiving from groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood.
Rosenberg further probed Rubio on whether the administration would take steps to officially label the group, and possibly the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), as terrorist entities. According to The Post Millennial, Rubio confirmed that these actions are indeed in progress. He emphasized that the Brotherhood operates through multiple branches, each of which requires its own designation.
Rubio acknowledged the complexity and length of the process but affirmed its priority status. We are constantly reviewing for groups to designate, for what they are: supporters of terrorists, maybe terrorists themselves. We havent done this in a long time, so weve got a lot of catch-up to do. And youve mentioned a couple names, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, that are of grave concern, Rubio stated.
This move comes in the wake of heightened demands from lawmakers to scrutinize groups with alleged terror ties more closely. Earlier this month, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called on the Internal Revenue Service to investigate CAIRs tax-exempt status. He cited longstanding evidence of its connections to both Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
In a letter to IRS Commissioner Billy Long, Cotton contended that CAIRs public image as a civil rights organization conceals its deeper associations. He pointed out that in the largest terrorism financing case in US history, CAIR was listed as part of the Muslim Brotherhoods Palestine Committee.
Previous court proceedings have revealed links between the Council on American-Islamic Relations Foundation Inc. (CAIR) and the terrorist organizations Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. In March, CAIR settled a case with a former employee rather than disclose its sources of foreign funding.
CAIR, which portrays itself as a civil rights group advocating for Muslim Americans, was identified by the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General as an unindicted co-conspirator in the United States v. Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. This case, the largest of its kind in U.S. history, linked CAIR leaders to Hamas, a specially designated terrorist organization.
In a speech delivered in November 2023, CAIRs national executive director and co-founder, Nihad Awad, expressed his satisfaction at Palestinians breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, referring to Hamas October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians that resulted in 1,200 deaths and over 250 hostages. These remarks led the Biden administration to subsequently remove CAIR from its White House task force on antisemitism.
Steve Emerson, founder and director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, has previously stated that CAIR was created as a Hamas front group and still functions as a propaganda arm of Hamas to this day. These developments underscore the need for continued scrutiny of such organizations and their potential links to terrorism.
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