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IslamismSeptember 15 2021, 16:30 pm

Global Muslim Brotherhood Groups Commemorate 9/11 Attacks By Decrying Islamophobia

Sev­er­al Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood groups, includ­ing the Coun­cil on Amer­i­can-Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR), have issued state­ments mark­ing the 20th anniver­sary of the 9/11 ter­ror­ist attacks. An analy­sis by the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) shows that these com­mem­o­ra­tive state­ments pre­dom­i­nant­ly focus on the attack’s Islam­o­pho­bic back­lash and what are seen as scape­goat­ing of Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties world­wide while fail­ing to crit­i­cize or even men­tion the terrorist’s Islamist ide­ol­o­gy. Accord­ing to a state­ment on the CAIR website:

Sep­tem­ber 11, 2021 As we mark the 20th anniver­sary of that atro­cious day, we can’t help but mourn and hon­or the lives lost. I often reflect on the fam­i­lies that did lose some­one dear on that day or in the years that fol­lowed. I pray they’re doing well and that they’re telling their loved ones’ sto­ries so that we may nev­er for­get. Twen­ty years lat­er, the tragedy still cuts deep, and Amer­i­can Mus­lims still face an Islam­o­pho­bic rhetoric that con­tin­ues to pro­mote mis­trust and hos­tile behav­ior towards them.

Read the rest here.

The group also said that extrem­ist actions were nev­er an exam­ple of an entire cul­ture and that it was time to end the “xeno­pho­bic and racist rhetoric still per­me­at­ing our pol­i­tics and media.” CAIR, which describes itself as “America’s largest Islam­ic civ­il lib­er­ties group,” is part of the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB), a transna­tion­al Islamist net­work cov­ered by the GIOR. In Sep­tem­ber 2021, the GIOR report­ed that CAIR had also pub­lished a 9/11 teach­ing guide pro­vid­ing teach­ers with edu­ca­tion­al resources and tips that almost exclu­sive­ly high­light the attack’s impact on Amer­i­can Mus­lims while urg­ing no men­tion be made of the attack­ers’ Islamist motives.

Accord­ing to an 11 Sep­tem­ber 2021 press release by the US Coun­cil of Mus­lim Orga­ni­za­tions (USCMO), an umbrel­la group of US Mus­lim orga­ni­za­tions com­prised almost sole­ly of ele­ments of the GMB in the US:

Sep­tem­ber 11, 2021 We remem­ber the 2,977 men, women, and chil­dren who were killed and the more than 6,000 who were injured in our nation on Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001. We remem­ber the count­less men, women, and chil­dren who have been impact­ed by hate and big­otry inside and out­side the Mus­lim over the past 20 years, includ­ing the first vic­tim of a post‑9/11 hate crime, Bal­bir Singh Sodhi.

Read the rest here.

In its state­ment, the USCMO also said that many Amer­i­cans and “mil­lions of peo­ple in far-flung places” had endured immense suf­fer­ing as a result of the “dis­as­trous” War on Ter­ror, also high­light­ing those who have been impact­ed by hate and bigotry.

Accord­ing to a 9/11 com­mem­o­ra­tive post by the Islam­ic Cir­cle of North Amer­i­ca (ICNA), an impor­tant part of the US MB:

Sep­tem­ber 11, 2021 Each sec­tor of the nation’s pop­u­la­tion was phys­i­cal­ly, emo­tion­al­ly, and psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly impact­ed by the three-pronged coor­di­nat­ed attack on the Unit­ed States. Mus­lim Amer­i­cans bore the brunt of the col­lec­tive out­rage of our fel­low cit­i­zens as the alleged per­pe­tra­tors were iden­ti­fied as being Muslims.

Read the rest here.

The ICNA state­ment said Amer­i­can Mus­lims had always reject­ed any domes­tic or for­eign acts of ter­ror­ism and that the attack, in which one of its work­ers died, served as both a reminder of “one of the most trau­ma­tiz­ing occur­rences to unfold on Amer­i­can soil” and as a tes­ti­mo­ny to the resilience of “every com­mu­ni­ty liv­ing in America.”

On the same say, the Mus­lim Coun­cil of Britain (MCB), among Britain’s most influ­en­tial Mus­lim orga­ni­za­tions and which has his­tor­i­cal­ly act­ed in con­cert with the GMB, issued an update to a state­ment it made on the day of the attack con­demn­ing the terrorist’s actions while at the same time warn­ing of “knee-jerk reac­tions that would make vic­tims of oth­er inno­cent peo­ples of the world”:

Sep­tem­ber 11, 2021 Two decades on, hun­dreds of thou­sands of inno­cent peo­ple have died as a result of both ter­ror­ism and the war on ter­ror glob­al­ly, many of them Mus­lim. Along with the deaths and suf­fer­ing, there has been more divi­sion, more Islam­o­pho­bia and reflex­ive pol­i­cy approach­es that see Mus­lims as a secu­ri­ty threat rather than the ordi­nary and pro­duc­tive mem­bers of soci­ety they are.

Read the rest here.

The MCB also said that they remem­bered all those who had been caught up in the “two decades of vio­lence, vengeance and vac­u­ous poli­cies” that had pre­vailed since the attack.

It is some­times assert­ed that the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood is a “fire­wall” against extrem­ism or ter­ror­ism. For exam­ple, a 2016 UK Par­lia­men­tary review of “Polit­i­cal Islam” and the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood concluded:

…the vast major­i­ty of polit­i­cal Islamists are involved in no vio­lence what­so­ev­er. Because of this, and because of their broad­er sta­tus as a ‘fire­wall’ against extrem­ism, polit­i­cal Islamists have suf­fered crit­i­cism and attack from ISIL and oth­er extrem­ist organisations.

How­ev­er, also in 2016, a report by the GIOR Senior Edi­tor ana­lyzed a group called the Glob­al Anti-Aggres­sion Cam­paign (GAAC), described in the report as follows:

While claim­ing to be a “non-gov­ern­men­tal, inde­pen­dent, peace­ful, edu­ca­tion­al cam­paign of vol­un­teers”, the Glob­al Anti-Aggres­sion Cam­paign (GAAC) is in real­i­ty a Salafi-led inter­na­tion­al umbrel­la orga­ni­za­tion that brings under its wings Salafi, Salafi-Jiha­di, Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and Hamas lead­ers. The GAAC views the US as a key ene­my of Islam and the pur­pose of the GAAC is to fight the US and its allies – a fight which has includ­ed close coop­er­a­tion with the vio­lent insur­gency direct­ed against Iraqi and Coali­tion forces in Iraq. At least sev­en lead­ing GAAC fig­ures and/or their orga­ni­za­tions have been des­ig­nat­ed as ter­ror­ists by the Unit­ed States, the EU, and/or the Unit­ed Nations for their sup­port of Al-Qae­da and relat­ed groups – with some of these lead­ers known to have been close to Osama Bin Laden himself.

Promi­nent Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood lead­ers were GAAC lead­ers and/or par­tic­i­pat­ed in GAAC con­fer­ences, includ­ing the movement’s ‘spir­i­tu­al leader’ Youssef Qaradawi, UK fugi­tive and senior Hamas com­man­der Moham­mad Sawal­ha, Yemeni Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leader and US-des­ig­nat­ed ter­ror­ist Abd-Al-Majid Al-Zin­dani, Tunisian Ennah­da Par­ty leader Rachid Ghan­nouchi, and Anas Altikri­ti, the key spokesman and lob­by­ist for the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Britain. Oth­er GAAC fig­ures includ­ed lead­ers of the Jor­dan­ian and Egypt­ian Mus­lim Broth­er­hoods as well as indi­vid­u­als resid­ing in Europe and the US. No Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood fig­ure or group has ever been known to have crit­i­cized the GAAC.

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