Free Republic

A court in Egypt has dissolved the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the Muslim Brotherhood's political wing. The ruling will effectively prevent the banned Islamist movement from formally participating in parliamentary elections expected later this year. The government declared the Brotherhood a terrorist group in December.

We who follow the Islamist movement fell off our collective chair on Nov. 15 when the news came that the United Arab Emirates' ministerial cabinet had listed the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as one of 83 proscribed terrorist organizations, up there with the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and ISIS. This came as a surprise because the UAE authorities themselves have a record of promoting Islamism; because CAIR has a history of raising funds in the UAE; and because the UAE embassy in Washington had previously praised CAIR. On reflection, however, the listing makes sense for, in recent years, the Islamist movement...

Illustrating that the jihadist enterprise transcends all borders, American Islamist groups typically preoccupied with remaking the U.S. have been leaving their fingerprints on the campaign to exchange secular authoritarianism for religious authoritarianism in the Middle East. As these organizations labor stateside to nudge the governing class to embrace Arab Islamists at the expense of liberals — prompting Egyptian intellectual Essam Abdallah to lament that "the most dramatic oppression of the region's civil societies and the Arab Spring … is led by the powerful Islamist lobbies in Washington" — several of the groups' past and current officials have emerged as key...

From the Middle East Media Research Institute comes a recent video of Egyptian presidential candidate Bassem Khafagi on Al-Nas TV promising to “complete the implementation of Islamic law in Egypt” (HT: Zip). From the MEMRI transcript: (VIDEO AT LINK) Bassem Khafaji: Let me tell you, in all honesty, that as a Muslim Egyptian, I am convinced of [the need to] complete the implementation of Islamic law in Egypt. I do not hide this truth in any way, because it is in keeping with the inclination of the Egyptian people. We Egyptians – both Muslims and non-Muslims – refer to the...

I never give time frames, because you never know where you'll have sufficient evidence to go public with a prosecution, " Mueller said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations is demanding Congress investigate US Airway's removal last week of six imams from one of its flights. The Muslim-rights group claims the imams, who were behaving suspiciously, posed no threat. It's "very, very inappropriate to treat religious leaders that way," a spokesman fumed. According to CAIR, imams are as harmless as Buddhist monks and deserve no less respect. Tell that to flight attendant Kimberly Banducci. According to police reports I've obtained, the Delta Air Lines veteran was assaulted by a Muslim cleric in a bizarre attack aboard a flight from Miami International Airport three years...

On 3 July, 2003, ABC News announced that the government has presented information leading to the federal indictment of eleven men who had trained in the woods of Fairfax County, Virginia with “AK-47” style assault weapons. According to the government, the men had also participated in warlike paintball games to practice military tactics in Spotsylvania County and had practiced shooting at various shooting ranges. Of the eleven indicted, one name stands out: Mr. Randall Todd Royer, who has served as a communications specialist and as a civil rights coordinator for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). The government alleges...

<p>WASHINGTON - On Aug. 20, 2001, Saleh Ibn Abdul Rahman Hussayen, a man who would soon be named a minister of the Saudi government and put in charge of its two holy mosques, arrived in the United States to meet with some of this country's most influential fundamentalist Sunni Muslim leaders.</p>

<p>SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) -- A former University of Idaho football player has been arrested as a material witness in an investigation of Islamic charities with possible links to terrorism, FBI agents said Tuesday.</p> <p>Abdullah Al-Kidd, 30, was arrested Sunday at Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C., according to two FBI agents who separately spoke on condition of anonymity. He was carrying a one-way ticket to Saudi Arabia, court documents show.</p>

A second man with ties to the University of Idaho has been arrested by federal agents in a widening investigation of a suspected terrorist-related web in the Moscow, Idaho-Pullman, Wash., area, an FBI source confirmed today. Former Idaho student Bassem K. Khafagi was arrested in January at the Marriott Hotel near New York City’s LaGuardia Airport and was returned to Michigan to face bank fraud charges, court documents show. A total of four men with ties to the Moscow-Pullman area and the Michigan-based Islamic Assembly of North America have been implicated in the investigation. They include current University of Idaho...