TSA Flags Islamist Charity Boss: Zakat Foundation Director Has Ties to Erdogan Government

Ibrahim Halil Demir, direc­tor of Chica­go-based Zakat Foun­da­tion, is being repeat­ed­ly flagged by US secu­ri­ty author­i­ties and sub­ject­ed to enhanced air­port screen­ings. On 23 June 2025, Nordic Mon­i­tor report­ed that Demir, a nat­u­ral­ized US cit­i­zen with close ties to Pres­i­dent Erdo­gan’s gov­ern­ment, filed a law­suit against the Trans­porta­tion Secu­ri­ty Admin­is­tra­tion seek­ing records about his des­ig­na­tion as a secu­ri­ty risk. The arti­cle begins:

Ibrahim Halil Demir, a long­time exec­u­tive of a Chica­go-based Islam­ic char­i­ty with close ties to the Turk­ish gov­ern­ment, has been flagged as a secu­ri­ty risk in the Unit­ed States, sub­ject­ing him to repeat­ed air­port screen­ings and, at times, removal from flights. Over the years Demir, a nat­u­ral­ized US cit­i­zen of Turk­ish ori­gin, has main­tained close ties with the Islamist gov­ern­ment of Pres­i­dent Recep Tayyip Erdo­gan. He has coor­di­nat­ed influ­ence cam­paigns along with Turk­ish offi­cials and facil­i­tat­ed the trans­fer of funds to sup­port oper­a­tions in places such as Gaza, Syr­ia and Yemen. Although Demir has appeared to act as a vehi­cle for Ankara’s glob­al polit­i­cal agen­da under the guise of human­i­tar­i­an work, nei­ther he nor his orga­ni­za­tion appears in the US For­eign Agents Reg­is­tra­tion Act (FARA) data­base.  FARA requires any per­son in the US who pro­motes the inter­ests of a for­eign pow­er to reg­is­ter and file reg­u­lar dis­clo­sure reports.

           Read more: https://nordicmonitor.com/2025/06/turkish-president-erdogans-operative-in-the-us-placed-on-airline-blacklist/

Key Points

• Demir’s name appeared in a 2023 leaked TSA No-Fly List and Ter­ror­ist Screen­ing Dataset with both Turk­ish and Ara­bic spellings among 1.5 mil­lion entries
• The Zakat Foun­da­tion direc­tor orga­nized Turk­ish fes­ti­vals in Chica­go, report­ed­ly at Ankara’s urg­ing, sup­port­ed by Turk­ish state insti­tu­tions, includ­ing the presidency
• Demir host­ed Turk­ish Deputy Prime Min­is­ter Numan Kur­tul­muş in 2016 and led US Mus­lim del­e­ga­tions to meet Turk­ish offi­cials, serv­ing as liai­son between con­sulates and diaspora
• Despite oper­at­ing as an appar­ent vehi­cle for Ankara’s polit­i­cal agen­da, nei­ther Demir nor his orga­ni­za­tion are reg­is­tered under For­eign Agents Reg­is­tra­tion Act

Turkey, Islamist Groups, and Muslim Brotherhood: Influence Operations Abroad

The Zakat Foun­da­tion of Amer­i­ca, found­ed in 2001 and head­quar­tered in Bridgeview, Illi­nois, is a 501(c)(3) human­i­tar­i­an NGO active in over 40 coun­tries, offer­ing aid in areas such as emer­gency relief, edu­ca­tion, and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. Its founder and exec­u­tive direc­tor, Halil Demir, is a Turk­ish-Amer­i­can with close ties to Turk­ish state insti­tu­tions. Under his lead­er­ship, the foun­da­tion has col­lab­o­rat­ed with Turk­ish gov­ern­men­tal agen­cies such as Diyanet and AFAD, orga­nized state-backed Turk­ish cul­tur­al fes­ti­vals in Chica­go, and main­tained offices in Turkey aligned with Ankara’s inter­na­tion­al out­reach. In addi­tion to these gov­ern­ment links, the foun­da­tion has been fre­quent­ly asso­ci­at­ed with indi­vid­u­als and groups tied to the U.S. Mus­lim Broth­er­hood network

Turk­ish Islamist groups, par­tic­u­lar­ly those aligned with the rul­ing AKP, have cul­ti­vat­ed deep ide­o­log­i­cal and oper­a­tional link­ages with the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, lever­ag­ing shared net­works to project influ­ence far beyond Turkey’s bor­ders. Through strate­gic deploy­ment of NGOs and polit­i­cal net­works, Ankara has advanced its agen­da in regions such as South Asia and Europe, fram­ing its activ­i­ties with­in nar­ra­tives of Islam­ic sol­i­dar­i­ty and human­i­tar­i­an aid while pur­su­ing geopo­lit­i­cal objec­tives. Exten­sive ties between AKP offi­cials and pan-Euro­pean Mus­lim Broth­er­hood orga­ni­za­tions have enabled coor­di­nat­ed mes­sag­ing and influ­ence oper­a­tions, with these alliances often embed­ded with­in reli­gious and dias­po­ra com­mu­ni­ties to shape polit­i­cal and social discourse.

Joint ini­tia­tives in Ger­many and beyond have fur­ther demon­strat­ed the AKP’s ambi­tion to posi­tion Turkey as a leader of polit­i­cal Islam, with Turk­ish intel­li­gence and dias­po­ra orga­ni­za­tions active­ly mobi­liz­ing sup­port and tar­get­ing dis­si­dents abroad. This transna­tion­al approach reflects a delib­er­ate strat­e­gy to expand soft pow­er, con­sol­i­date ide­o­log­i­cal allies, and chal­lenge both region­al adver­saries and Euro­pean inte­gra­tion norms.

Exter­nal References:

1. A new Mus­lim Broth­er­hood out­fit oper­ates under the wing of the Erdo­gan gov’t to exe­cute influ­ence operations

2. DPI study reveals the Turk­ish AKP’s links to the Mus­lim Brotherhood

3. Turkey’s Islamist Rulers Expand Their Influ­ence Oper­a­tions in U.S.

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.