Counterterrorism Blog

As Pakistan rapidly descends into chaos, the FBI is reaching out to an American branch of one of the most noxious Islamist elements in Pakistan, the Tanzeem-e-Islami. Top officials from Detroit's FBI Field office spoke at a gathering in a Warren, Michigan mosque to talk about the dangers of extremism in every religion. Apparently, the FBI agents were unaware that at that very moment, they were speaking to an extremist organization. Here's an excerpt from an article I wrote on the Investigative Project on Terrorism's website:

Much has been written about the U.S. government's current bout of schizophrenia in its outreach to the American Muslim community, specifically related to the Department of Justice. While federal prosecutors in Dallas have labeled several Islamist organizations as unindicted co-conspirators - describing them as front groups for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood - in the terrorist financing trial against the Holy Land for Relief and Development (HLF), the FBI is meeting with the very same groups to hold outreach events and the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ is setting up booths at their conferences.

As wrongheaded and shortsighted as these policies are, they do not hold a candle to a recent outreach event held by the FBI's Detroit field office at the end of last month. As reported in the Detroit Free Press (see: Detroit's FBI chief: Violence extremism cuts across religions), two top FBI officials from that office "spoke to about 50 Muslims inside the Islamic Organization of North America, or Tanzeem-e-Islami." The Free Press described the organization as merely "a Sunni mosque with a primarily Pakistani congregation" and tells us that the meeting was nothing more than "part of an effort by the FBI to reach out to Muslims and other communities."

While outreach to the Muslim community remains an important endeavor, officials at the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have become far less discerning in determining who the gatekeepers and spokesmen for the American Muslim community should be.

Take this recent meeting with Tanzeem-e-Islami, a group founded in Pakistan in 1975 and headed by a man named Dr. Israr Ahmad. The FBI might be unaware, but Ahmad is often credited with initiating the vicious rumor, spread throughout the Muslim world, that Israel was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. On the heels of the attacks, he sent faxes to various U.S. mosques and Islamic centers, stating:

The secret Israeli service Musad [sic] orchestrated these terrorist attacks ... [which] are a vital link in the chain of events that the Jews are undertaking to fulfill their dream of world domination.

It turns out that Dr. Ahmad is a rather prolific writer on such topics, and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories permeate his writing.

For the full article, click here to visit the IPT's website.