U.S. Think-Tank Accepts Financial Support From IIIT

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Confidential sources report that the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood financially supported conferences sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and which involved a number of individuals associated with the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. According to the report:

Muslims in the United States: Identity, Influence, Innovation is an edited volume of proceedings of conferences sponsored by the Division of US Studies, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Philippa Strum, the editor of the book, is the director of the Division of US Studies at the Wilson Center. The book consists of presentations made in 2003 and 2005 conferences. The members of the 2003 Conference Planning Committee were Zahid Bukhari, Charles Butterworth, Yvonne Haddad, Omar Kader, Ibrahim Kalin Aminah McCloud, Philip Mattar, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Sulayman Nyang, Danielle Tarantolo, Amina Wadud. In addition to these names, the 2005 conference planning committee featured Fakhri al-Barzinji, Hisham Altalib, Jamal Barzinji, Hiyam Kanaan, Fathi Malkawi, Kathleen Moore, and Jane Smith.

Almost all of the members of the planning committee are associated with the U.S. Brotherhood. The report also indicated that he conferences were financially supported by PaL-Tech, Inc., a Virginia consulting company that provides training services to U.S. Government locations around the world. PaL-Tech is headed by Omar Kader who is 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 a board member of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID),also associated with the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.

The report also indicated that conferences proceedings were distributed at a Wilson Center panel discussion on Connecting Muslims Communities and Governments in the United States on March 5, 2008. The panel included:

…Mounir Azzaoui, Spokesman of Green Muslims of the Green Party in Germany and Working Group on Constitutional Issues of the German Islam Conference; Bernard Godard, Advisor to Central Office of Religions at the French Ministry of Interior; Mayor Sue Greenwald of City of Davis, California; and Sajida Madni, Birmingham Citizens Organisation, UK.

IIIT was founded in 1980 by important members of the Global Muslim Brotherhood including Dr. Barzinji and is associated with the SAAR Foundation, a network of Islamic organizations located in Northern Virginia that was raided by the Federal government in 2003 and which is the subject of an ongoing investigation. The organization has made great strides recently in rehabilitating its image and previous posts have discussed its relationship with the U.S. State Department.

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