Khdiga Metwally registered in June as a candidate for Halton District School Board trustee representing Milton Wards 1 and 2 in the October 26 election. Her son, Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy, was sentenced in December 2018 to four decades in federal prison after pleading guilty to terrorism charges. In December 2020, while already imprisoned for the New York terror plot, El Bahnasawy stabbed two corrections officers at a Pennsylvania prison with a homemade weapon. One officer lost his right eye. A note found in El Bahnasawy’s sock read: “This is a terrorist attack for the Islamic State.”

Amy Collard, chair of the Halton District School Board, has publicly endorsed Metwally’s candidacy. “Khdiga Metwally would bring a fresh perspective to the HDSB board table,” Collard wrote. “Khdiga fully understands the role of public school board Trustees, and is prepared to support the academic achievement and wellbeing of all our students.” The endorsement has drawn scrutiny after the story gained attention on social media and conservative outlets in early September.

The Terror Plot

U.S. prosecutors documented that El Bahnasawy, then 18, worked with ISIS operatives to plan mass-casualty attacks in New York City during Ramadan 2016. He purchased approximately 40 pounds of hydrogen peroxide for making explosives, along with Christmas lights, batteries, thermometers, and aluminum foil. Court records show El Bahnasawy told an undercover FBI agent: “These Americans need an attack. I wanna create the next 9/11.”

The plot targeted Times Square, the New York City subway system, and concert venues. El Bahnasawy coordinated with co-conspirators in Pakistan and the Philippines, shipped bomb-making materials to New York, and traveled from Canada to New Jersey in May 2016 to execute the attacks. The FBI arrested him in a hotel parking lot.

Prosecutors rejected defense arguments that mental illness mitigated his culpability. “El Bahnasawy may be polite, soft-spoken, and articulate, but make no mistake — behind that veil is a dangerous and calculating man who displayed a knowing, willing and steadfast desire to kill,” U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman wrote in the government’s sentencing memorandum.

Years of Public Advocacy

Since her son’s arrest, Metwally has campaigned publicly for his transfer to Canada and blamed law enforcement agencies for his conviction. In a 2018 CBC interview, she said: “They [the FBI and RCMP] knew my son was sick, and they continued.” She characterized her son as vulnerable to “manipulation” by ISIS recruiters and undercover agents.

Canada’s National Security and Intelligence Review Agency investigated the family’s complaint that the RCMP entrapped El Bahnasawy. In October 2023, NSIRA vice-chair Craig Forcese found the RCMP conducted a “good faith investigation” based on “credible evidence of an existing willingness by Mr. El Bahnasawy to commit acts of violence.” The review concluded: “I have found no evidence on the record before me of entrapment.”

Court documents revealed El Bahnasawy’s extensive involvement in ISIS networks before the plot. Beginning in late 2015, he communicated with high-level ISIS recruiters, administered ISIS hacking groups, vetted new ISIS contacts, shipped cellphones to ISIS operatives, and wired $500 to ISIS-connected individuals. An FBI investigation found El Bahnasawy was “determined to move his plot from online into the real world,” according to the NSIRA report.

The Campaign

Metwally’s campaign materials describe her as holding a PhD in “Community Building and Human Development” and serving as founder and director of the Canadian Centre for Training and Consultation. Her candidate profile states she worked as a “University Department Chair” and “former Life Skills Teacher.” The materials make no mention of her son’s convictions or her years advocating that he was entrapped.

In her campaign statement, Metwally cited “personal family experience” that “has shown me the value of early understanding, compassionate support, and appropriate intervention” regarding mental health support in schools.

The story gained public attention in early September after a social media post alerting voters to Metwally’s family connection received more than 72,000 views. Conservative outlets subsequently covered the race. Neither Metwally nor Collard has issued a public statement since the controversy emerged.

El Bahnasawy is currently held at ADX Florence in Colorado, known as the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” where inmates spend 23 hours a day in solitary confinement. He pleaded guilty in November 2025 to stabbing the two prison officers and providing material support to ISIS.

The election is October 26. Metwally faces one opponent, Andrew Wood, for the Ward 1 and 2 trustee seat.

Muslim Legal founder Hassan Shibly is representing controversial influencer Milo Yiannopoulos in connection with his recent deportation from the United States, an unlikely legal partnership drawing new attention to Shibly, his firm and an institutional record spanning CAIR, Islamic publishing and international Islamic leadership gatherings.

Yiannopoulos was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport on August 27. The Department of Homeland Security said he entered the United States legally in May 2019, overstayed his visa and failed to appear for an immigration hearing, resulting in a final removal order issued July 22. He was deported to the United Kingdom the following day, according to Reuters.

A September 7 preservation letter signed by Shibly says Muslim Legal was retained by Yiannopoulos in connection with civil claims arising from reported statements, communications and conduct concerning his immigration status and alleged efforts to influence government action against him. The letter requests preservation of potentially relevant communications, electronic records and other evidence.

From Deportation to a London Mosque

The relationship quickly became more conspicuous following Yiannopoulos’s return to Britain. Shibly posted photographs of the two together in London and said they had entered a mosque so Yiannopoulos could observe Muslims praying. In his post, Shibly described Yiannopoulos as a former “leading anti-Muslim voice” who had become a friend.

Yiannopoulos separately posted a photograph accompanied by an Islamic hadith. The mosque visit and Islamic imagery prompted online speculation that Yiannopoulos had converted, though neither of the two posts announced a conversion.

The episode marks a striking reversal for a commentator who has long publicly identified as Catholic and argued that Christianity underpins the values of Western civilization.

Shibly’s Controversial Statements on America

Shibly’s own remarks about Muslim life in the United States provide broader context for his ideology. In remarks from 2025 later circulated online, Shibly asked why Muslims were living in the United States and said the answer he considered “excusable and justifiable” was if they were living there to “shift this country’s political direction and spiritual direction together,” while engaging in da’wah, or Islamic religious outreach and proselytizing. A video clip captures the remarks.

CAIR Personnel at Muslim Legal

Muslim Legal carries significant personnel continuity from the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The firm’s own biography says Shibly served for a decade as executive director of CAIR-Florida before founding Muslim Legal, while its current team page lists Zanah Ghalawanji as of counsel for employment matters and Kimberly Noe-Lehenbauer as of counsel for civil rights.

Both attorneys previously worked within CAIR’s national legal operation. CAIR identified Noe-Lehenbauer as a “CAIR Civil Rights Attorney” and Legal Defense Fund staff attorney in a press release, while her professional biography says she spent five years as a senior staff attorney at the CAIR National Legal Defense Fund.

CAIR likewise identified Ghalawanji as a “CAIR Staff Attorney” in an announcement. Most clearly, a 2023 federal complaint lists Noe-Lehenbauer and Ghalawanji together under “CAIR NATIONAL LEGAL DEFENSE FUND” at CAIR’s Washington headquarters. Muslim Legal’s founder spent a decade leading CAIR-Florida, while two current of-counsel attorneys previously served at the CAIR National Legal Defense Fund.

Shibly’s Publishing House Issued Explicitly Anti-Western Religious Material

Another little-reported element of Shibly’s background is Madania Publications. The Yaqeen Institute identifies Shibly as its founder, while a publishing-industry profile identifies him as “Publisher, Madania Publications.” A Madania edition of The Preservation of Hadith also credited him as production manager.

Among Madania’s releases was a revised U.S. edition of Hijab: The Islamic Commandments of Hijab. The Madania edition advances a sharply hostile view of Western social norms, declaring: “The Christians, Jews and atheists of the West are truly dangerous enemies of Muslims.” It also condemns Western influence over relations between men and women and argues for extensive gender segregation and covering requirements.

Shibly Taught at an Institution Shaped by Syria’s Baathist Religious Establishment

Shibly’s biography contains another underreported chapter in Syria. Yaqeen states that he “has taught courses at the Kuftaro Institution in Damascus, Syria,” an institution closely associated with longtime Syrian Grand Mufti Ahmad Kuftaro.

A Carnegie study says Kuftaro was the only member of Damascus’s ulama to support the Baath Party candidate in a pivotal 1957 parliamentary contest. He later became grand mufti and gained government favor, while Carnegie describes the Kuftaro Complex as becoming increasingly subordinate to the Syrian regime.

Kuftaro’s record also extended to the Iraq War. In March 2003, he issued a religious edict calling on Muslims to “resist invading forces using any and all means available to them”, explicitly including “martyrdom operations” against invading soldiers, according to contemporary reporting.

From CAIR-Florida to Istanbul’s Muslim Leadership Networks

Shibly’s international record also includes two appearances in Istanbul a decade apart. The official program for the May 2016 Global Donors Forum lists “Hassan Shibly, Executive Director, CAIR Florida, USA” as a discussant in a workshop titled “Confronting Extremism, Cultivating Diversity.”

The program names Qatari Sheikha Aisha Faleh Al-Thani as forum chair and lists Turkish MP Cemalettin Kani Torun, Turkish Red Crescent president Kerem Kınık and South African diplomat Ebrahim Rasool in its conveners and patrons section. It also identifies Ayşe Böhürler as a co-founder of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party and Meryem İlayda Atlas as editor-in-chief of Daily Sabah. Rasool later served as South Africa’s ambassador in Washington before Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared him persona non grata in March 2025, according to the AP.

A decade later, Shibly appeared in Istanbul at the July 13–18, 2026 Prophetic Strategy Summit. Its official speaker roster included Bilal Philips, whom the British government previously excluded from the country after saying he had engaged in “unacceptable behavior” by fomenting and justifying terrorism and seeking to provoke terrorist acts.

The Yiannopoulos case now places that record behind one of the more improbable legal partnerships in recent memory: a controversial influencer deported from the United States, represented by a former CAIR-Florida executive who has spoken openly about shifting America’s political and spiritual direction, founded a publisher that issued explicitly anti-Western religious material, taught at a Damascus institution shaped by Syria’s Baathist religious establishment, and later appeared at an Islamic leadership gatherings in Istanbul.

Austria’s Europe and Integration Minister Claudia Bauer has begun preparing an outline for a proposed ban on political Islam through a federal constitutional law after Chancellor Christian Stocker called for the measure on August 28, declaring that a political understanding of Islam was incompatible with Austria’s democracy and Western values.

Stocker, the center-right Austrian People’s Party chancellor, said Austria would continue to protect religious freedom while drawing a line at political efforts that deny equal treatment to believers and nonbelievers or to men and women. “If Islam is understood politically, it is incompatible with our democracy and our Western values,” Stocker told Heute. He called for confronting the political use of religion “with full force” and said he supported a ban through a federal constitutional law.

Subscribe now

Minister Prepares Broader Legal Package

Bauer is preparing an initial framework for the government’s three-party coalition. She said the contemplated package could extend beyond a constitutional law into association law, laws governing religious communities and other legal areas.

Bauer described political Islam as “the greatest danger of our time” and said it seeks to place itself above the democratic constitutional state, reshape society and state institutions, restrict the freedom of girls and women and undermine peaceful religious coexistence.

The coalition has not yet approved a proposal. NEOS parliamentary leader Yannick Shetty said any ban would require a clear definition capable of withstanding legal scrutiny, while SPÖ State Secretary Jörg Leichtfried said his party would examine the ÖVP’s proposal. A federal constitutional law requires a two-thirds majority of votes cast with at least half the members of Austria’s National Council present.

Austria’s Directorate of State Security and Intelligence has publicly welcomed discussion of additional measures. DSN chief Sylvia Mayer said action against legalistic Islamism must take place on multiple levels and with clear objectives, warning that it poses dangers to Austrian democracy.

Muslim Brotherhood Influence Under Scrutiny

On August 28, the DSN announced that it had found indications of Muslim Brotherhood influence over DERAD, a deradicalization organization that had worked with convicted offenders and people released from prison on behalf of several Austrian ministries. The Justice Ministry subsequently ended its cooperation with the organization.

The DSN defines political or legalistic Islam as efforts to gradually reshape social and political structures according to Islamist ideology. It classifies the Muslim Brotherhood as part of that sphere and says there are efforts within the broader milieu to entrench Islamist ideas, including the long-term establishment of Sharia and a caliphate as a state or social order.

Existing Legal Restrictions

Austria’s Symbols Act already prohibits the public display, showing, wearing or dissemination of specified symbols of the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State, al-Qaeda and other listed groups, subject to statutory exceptions.

Bauer has said she wants a broader accompanying legal package, but until legislative language and a binding definition are published, it remains unclear which organizations, activities or institutions would fall within its scope.

The City of Austin approved $1,500 in taxpayer funding for a September 10 event co-hosted by CAIR-Austin, nine months after Governor Greg Abbott designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations as a foreign terrorist organization and seven months after Attorney General Ken Paxton sued to shut down CAIR’s Texas operations. The event, promoted as part of Austin’s “We All Belong” anti-hate initiative, will screen a documentary titled “Jesus Was a Migrant” at the city-owned Asian American Resource Center, with CAIR representatives participating in an interfaith panel discussion alongside immigration legal services providers.

Austin Public Information Specialist Natalie Hulsey confirmed the public funding to The Dallas Express, stating the event is “directly tied to the City of Austin’s We All Belong initiative.” The grant represents a small portion of the $150,000 Austin’s Equity and Inclusion office allocated for the We All Belong program in fiscal year 2025-2026. The event registration page lists CAIR-Austin, FaithWorks, and partner organizations as hosts, with Austin Equity and Inclusion as the official sponsor.

State-Level Legal Battle

Abbott’s November 18, 2025 proclamation designated CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations under the Texas Penal Code and transnational criminal organizations under the Texas Property Code. The designation, which is a state action rather than a federal foreign terrorist organization listing, prohibits the groups from purchasing or acquiring land in Texas.

“The Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR have long made their goals clear: to forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam’s ‘mastership of the world,’” Abbott stated in the proclamation. “These radical extremists are not welcome in our state and are now prohibited from acquiring any real property interest in Texas.”

Paxton followed with a February 5, 2026 lawsuit against national CAIR and its Austin, Houston, and Dallas-Fort Worth chapters, seeking to ban the organizations from operating in Texas. The lawsuit cites CAIR-Texas’s founding board member’s 2008 conviction for funneling $12.4 million to Hamas through the Holy Land Foundation, a case in which CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator, though a federal judge later ruled the government violated due process by publicizing that designation.

“Sharia law and the jihadists who follow sharia law have no business being in Texas,” Paxton said. “Radical Islamic terrorists are antithetical to law and order, endanger the people of Texas, and are an existential threat to our values.”

Austin’s Response

Rather than distancing itself from CAIR following the state designation, Austin doubled down. On January 22, 2026 — two months after Abbott’s proclamation — the Austin City Council honored CAIR-Austin with an official “CAIR-Austin Day” proclamation recognizing the organization’s “vital role in protecting the civil rights of Austin’s Muslim community.”

Council Member Krista Laine stated at the ceremony: “This proclamation reminds us that everyone belongs in Austin.”

Documentary and Event Details

The September 10 event centers on a 31-minute documentary by Tisby Studios that equates Jesus Christ with modern illegal border crossers. The film argues that Jesus’ brief childhood flight to Egypt — a temporary journey within the Roman Empire that fulfilled Old Testament prophecy — makes him comparable to asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border today. The documentary’s premise frames Christian support for border enforcement as theological apostasy.

Filmmaker Jemar Tisby, author of “The Color of Compromise,” which critiques white evangelicalism as inherently racist, described the film as “a scathing indictment of those who call themselves Christian while supporting the current administration’s racist rhetoric and cruel violence.” When a Baptist News Global interviewer asked what Christians who support border enforcement will experience in heaven, Tisby responded: “What makes you think they’ll get to heaven?”

Partner organizations include Asian Texans for Justice, a progressive AAPI advocacy group, and American Gateways, which provides immigration legal services throughout Central Texas.

CAIR’s Background

The Anti-Defamation League documents that CAIR was founded by several leaders of the Islamic Association for Palestine, which federal prosecutors alleged was a Hamas propaganda front. The United Arab Emirates designated CAIR as a terrorist organization in 2014. The U.S. federal government has not designated CAIR as a terrorist organization.

State Board of Education member Brandon Hall told The Dallas Express: “Texas taxpayers shouldn’t tolerate any government or taxpayer-funded entity, at any level, partnering or working with CAIR. Texas taxpayer dollars should never be used to legitimize, support, or collaborate with organizations designated as foreign terrorist organizations. Period.”

CAIR disputes the allegations and called Paxton’s lawsuit “another frivolous, politically motivated anti-Muslim publicity stunt.”

The event remains scheduled for September 10 at 7:00 p.m. at the Asian American Resource Center, 8401 Cameron Road, Austin.

An Egyptian-American activist sentenced to life in prison by a Cairo court in 2015 for his role supporting the Muslim Brotherhood is now routing money into the U.S. Senate campaign of Michigan Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed. Mohamed Soltan, president of the Washington-based American Committee for Middle East Rights (ACMER), gave the maximum personal contribution to El-Sayed’s campaign last April, while the 501(c)(4) he leads sent $25,000 to the super PAC backing him — confirmed by Federal Election Commission filings.

Soltan is the son of Salah Soltan, a senior Brotherhood figure who served as deputy minister of endowments under Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. The donations arrive as El-Sayed heads into the November general election against former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers — and as the Muslim Brotherhood’s own official publication has already celebrated his primary victory in an article headlined “Abdul Rahman al-Sayyid conquers the Zionists and runs for the Senate.”

The Money Trail

FEC records show two $3,500 contributions from Mohamed Soltan of Fairfax, Virginia to Abdul for U.S. Senate on April 15, 2025 — a combined $7,000, the maximum an individual may give to a federal candidate across the primary and general elections. On June 12, 2026, ACMER itself sent $25,000 to Fighting for Michigan PAC, the super PAC backing El-Sayed. ACMER Treasurer Muna Jondy of Flushing, Michigan added a $15,000 contribution to the same super PAC on June 7, 2026, according to FEC filings.

The pattern extends into El-Sayed’s principal campaign committee. Jondy personally maxed out her contributions to Abdul for U.S. Senate with three transactions totaling $7,000 on June 24, 2025. Four additional Jondy family members from the same Flushing address gave another $17,500 across a dozen transactions between June 2025 and February 2026, FEC records show. ACMER’s most recent Form 990, filed in November 2025 with ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, lists Soltan as president and Jondy as treasurer, and reports net assets of $766,995.

The Cairo Sentence

Mohamed Soltan was arrested in August 2013 amid the crackdown that followed Morsi’s ouster and, in April 2015, was sentenced — alongside 35 others in a mass trial — to life in prison on charges including funding and membership in the Muslim Brotherhood. Amnesty International denounced the proceedings as unjust; the court’s judgment nonetheless remains on the record. Soltan was released in May 2015 after a 16-month hunger strike and pressure from the Obama administration, and now works in Washington as a policy advocate and investment consultant.

His father, Salah Soltan, was sentenced separately to death and to life in prison for inciting violence during the 2013 unrest, identified as one of more than 50 senior Brotherhood figures Egyptian prosecutors said set up a “control room” to direct the response to the military intervention.

El-Sayed’s Own Potential Brotherhood Record

The donations track a documented history. In January 2011, El-Sayed — then writing as “Abdulrahman El-Sayed,” an assistant professor at Columbia — published a Huffington Post column arguing Americans should back the uprising against Hosni Mubarak. “Even if the Muslim Brotherhood were to take power,” he wrote, “there are several reasons why the ensuing state would look nothing like Iran.”

In November 2012, after Morsi issued a decree ending judicial review of his decisions and dismissing Egypt’s attorney general, El-Sayed appeared, according to reporting by The Midwesterner citing a translation of the Arabic original, as one of 46 signatories to a statement in state-affiliated Bawabat Al-Ahram endorsing Morsi’s “revolutionary decisions” and calling on him to “purge the media and the police.”

A Broader Network

Soltan is not the only donor of concern. El-Sayed’s father-in-law Tayeb Jukaku, a founding-committee member of the Islamic Society of North America and former president of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Michigan chapter, has contributed $200,000 to Fighting for Michigan PAC. Both ISNA and CAIR were named unindicted co-conspirators in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation Hamas-financing prosecution, the largest terrorism-financing case in U.S. history.

A Fox News Digital review found El-Sayed’s campaign has collected over $115,000 from at least 41 individuals affiliated with CAIR, including its national board chair, treasurer, and vice chair.

On leaked audio from a March campaign strategy call obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, El-Sayed instructed staff not to comment on Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s death following U.S. military strikes. “There are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad today,” he said. “I just don’t want to comment on Khamenei at all.” El-Sayed’s campaign did not dispute the recording’s content but questioned how it was obtained.

The Bigger Picture

El-Sayed has built his campaign on the slogan of getting “money out of politics” and has singled out pro-Israel spending for particular criticism. The FEC filings tell a different story: a documented pipeline running from a man Egypt sentenced to life for financing the Brotherhood, through a Washington nonprofit, into the account of a candidate the Brotherhood’s own press already counts as a victory.

A biodiesel refinery in the French countryside has landed on the U.S. sanctions list after Washington traced it to Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, whom U.S. authorities say controls a sprawling oil and shipping network used to move Iranian and Russian petroleum around the world.

In July 2025, the U.S. Treasury targeted Shamkhani’s network in its largest Iran-related sanctions action since 2018, designating more than 50 individuals and entities and identifying more than 50 vessels. His father, Ali Shamkhani, a top adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, had already been sanctioned by Washington in 2020.

Now the trail leads to France.

Subscribe now

La Nivernaise de Raffinage, a functioning biodiesel refinery in Prémery, was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury on August 24 after being traced through Geneva-based Wellbred Trading SA and Singapore-based Wellbred Capital back to Shamkhani.

The Treasury Department says Shamkhani remained ultimately responsible for Wellbred, which pursued European alternative-energy investments “as part of its efforts to appear as a legitimate company,” including the French refinery acquisition.

The Network Behind Wellbred

Shamkhani’s network was already under heavy U.S. scrutiny. In July 2025, the U.S. Treasury described his operation as a “vast shipping empire” controlling a significant portion of Iran’s crude exports. The network used tankers, containerships, management firms and front companies to move Iranian and Russian petroleum while obscuring its ties to Iran and the Shamkhani family.

The operation generated tens of billions of dollars in profit, according to U.S. officials.

His father, Ali Shamkhani, was a top political adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader and was sanctioned by Washington in 2020. U.S. authorities say Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani leveraged his father’s political influence to build and expand the network.

La Nivernaise is controlled by Switzerland-based Wellbred Trading SA, which is in turn controlled by Singapore-based Wellbred Capital PTE. LTD. Wellbred Capital was sanctioned for being owned or controlled by, or acting on behalf of, Shamkhani.

Wellbred also traded oil, naphtha, liquefied petroleum gas and other petrochemicals that moved through Shamkhani’s broader network.

The IRGC Connection

La Nivernaise and the Wellbred companies were designated under Executive Order 13902, which targets sectors of Iran’s economy, rather than under Treasury’s primary counterterrorism authority. There is no public evidence that the French refinery itself processed Iranian crude or directly transferred money to a terrorist organization. But the wider Shamkhani network has been tied by U.S. authorities to funds allegedly benefiting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force.

In March 2026, the Justice Department sought forfeiture of more than $15.3 million allegedly used to fund Shamkhani’s illicit Iranian oil network. Prosecutors said the funds were subject to forfeiture because they provided a source of influence over the National Iranian Oil Company, the IRGC and the IRGC-Quds Force, with the latter two designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the United States.

According to the Justice Department, $12.97 million of the seized funds were intended for Wellbred Capital and its Dubai subsidiary, Wellbred Trading DMCC. Prosecutors allege Shamkhani and his associates operated those companies to maintain a “brand” that was not publicly perceived to be affiliated with Shamkhani or Iran.

The DOJ says that behind that public-facing image, Wellbred was actually operated by Shamkhani and close associates for the benefit of his network and Iran.

What the Records Show

A struggling French industrial plant was acquired through a court-approved deal by a Geneva commodities company presenting itself as a clean-energy investor.

The Prémery refinery now illustrates the reach of that strategy: an Iranian-linked network moving beyond shadow tankers and offshore shells into apparently ordinary commercial assets operating inside Europe.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott formally referred Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental airports to the U.S. Department of Justice on August 21, arguing that ablution facilities for Muslim travelers violate federal anti-discrimination law at government-owned airports. The DOJ referral followed an August 14 action in which Abbott threatened state grant revocations and referred both airports to the Transportation Department — moves that compelled DFW to cancel expansion plans within hours.

Abbott’s August 21 letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche argued the washing stations “single out one subset of the population for special treatment based on religion” and compared them to “white-only bathrooms.” The letter invoked federal grant compliance requirements under the FAA’s Airport Improvement Program, noting that airports receiving federal funds “are subject to conditions that require full compliance with laws prohibiting religious discrimination.” Both airports installed ablution facilities — DFW in 2019, Houston in February 2024 — and operated them without legal challenge until Abbott’s August intervention.

The governor’s office directed a review of all state grants to Texas airport operators on August 14, warning of “revocation of active state grant funds and the denial of any future grants” for airports found in violation of anti-discrimination law. That same day, Abbott referred both airports to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy for federal investigation. DFW announced that evening it was scrapping plans for two additional ablution stations in Terminal D, stating the project “would not deliver the originally anticipated operational benefits.”

Facilities Include Islamic Religious Items

The facilities at issue are low-basin washing stations used for wudu, the ritual cleansing Muslims perform before prayer. DFW installed two ablution stations adjacent to its Terminal D Interfaith Chapel in 2019. Houston opened its Terminal D ablution room in February 2024, connected to a prayer room furnished with “copies of the Quran, prayer rugs, prayer beads and a turbah” — items specific to Islamic religious practice.

Houston Mayor John Whitmire defended the facility as open to all travelers regardless of faith, noting it was “paid for by fees charged to the international airlines” serving Middle East routes. Emirates, Qatar Airways, and Turkish Airlines carried approximately 366,000 passengers from IAH Terminal D in 2025, accounting for 22 percent of international departures. Whitmire’s statement noted that “prior to the development of the dedicated washing station, travelers often used restroom sinks and other public water facilities for personal washing needs.”

Abbott’s August 14 letter to DFW CEO Christopher McLaughlin stated he was “unaware of either airport installing standalone facilities to meet the particular needs of the many other religious groups represented across Texas.” The letter concluded that “engaging in these discriminatory practices will subject any organizations found to be in violation to the withdrawal of grant funding and other enforcement actions.”

Funding Source Questions Preceded Cancellation

The proposed DFW expansion drew scrutiny after an initial Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation filing listed the project cost at $300,000 and marked it “privately funded.” State Sen. Tan Parker, chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, sent DFW a list of questions on August 13 asking who provided the private donation and how it was accepted.

The filing was revised to show $115,000 and changed the funding classification to “public funds, public land.” DFW called it an “administrative error” by the design firm preparing the permit. The airport said it does not use taxpayer dollars for operations, relying instead on parking and concession revenue. Neither DFW nor Houston has disclosed the original funding source for their existing ablution facilities installed in 2019 and 2024.

Grant Leverage as Policy Enforcement Mechanism

The airport action represents Abbott’s deployment of grant compliance authority to enforce contested policy positions. In May, Abbott threatened to revoke $530,000 in state grants unless Grand Prairie canceled an Eid celebration at a city-owned water park. The event’s initial flyer read “Muslims only,” which Abbott argued violated House Bill 4211, Texas legislation banning residential and public facilities from excluding non-Muslims. Grand Prairie canceled the event.

In October 2025, Abbott ordered the Texas Department of Transportation to withhold funding from cities that refused to remove rainbow crosswalks, calling them unauthorized markings conveying “political ideologies” on public roadways. Transportation Secretary Duffy had sent governors a letter in July 2025 urging removal of “political messaging” from roads and threatening federal funding cuts for non-compliance.

The grant-leverage strategy escalates enforcement beyond legislative authority. Airports operate under dual federal-state jurisdiction, with the FAA exercising primary control over terminal security and access through its Airport Improvement Program. Airports accepting AIP grants agree to 39 grant assurances, including civil rights compliance requirements. Abbott’s letters invoked these federal conditions to justify state and federal enforcement action.

DOJ Referral Seeks Federal Civil Rights Investigation

Abbott’s August 21 DOJ letter argued the facilities are “clearly purposed to benefit the Muslim population alone” and are “not comparable to any existing interfaith chapels, which are open and available to all.” He wrote that “airports can no more offer Muslim-only bathroom spaces than they can maintain white-only bathrooms” and requested the Justice Department “immediately review these discriminatory facilities at DFW and IAH and take appropriate corrective action.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations called Abbott’s action an “anti-Muslim political stunt” and argued the facilities are “universally-accessible” and comparable to interfaith chapels. CAIR is currently suing Abbott over his November 2025 proclamation designating the organization as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” under Texas law.

Neither the Justice Department nor the Transportation Department has publicly responded to Abbott’s referrals. Both airports continue operating their existing ablution facilities. DFW has not announced plans to remove its two stations installed in 2019.

The UK Home Office published a seven-page illustrated booklet in August 2026 instructing asylum seekers that rape is illegal in Britain, women have equal rights, and sex with children under 16 is a crime with no exceptions. The guide, distributed to tens of thousands of predominantly male arrivals from the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia, teaches concepts British officials determined required explicit instruction—including that marital rape is illegal, women can work without male permission, and making sexual comments to strangers constitutes harassment.

No government statement explains why asylum seekers need to be told that “both people must say ‘yes’ to sex,” but the materials arrive as Britain confronts thousands of grooming gang victims and a string of recent asylum seeker rape convictions. The booklet warns: violate these norms, and “it will affect your asylum claim.”

“This Is Called Consent”

The booklet opens with an acknowledgment. “We understand that coming to a new country can be difficult, and that laws and customs here may be different from your home country,” it states. What follows is instruction on concepts British officials determined required explicit articulation.

“In the UK, both people must say ‘yes’ to sex. This is called consent,” the booklet explains. “If you have sex with someone who does not want to, this is called rape. Rape is a serious crime.” The materials clarify that marital status provides no exception. “It is still rape if you are married to the person or in a relationship.”

The age of consent receives similar treatment. “Sex with someone under the age of 16 is a serious crime in the UK,” the booklet warns. “There are no exceptions to this rule. Even if they say yes, it is still illegal.” Consequences are spelled out: “You could go to prison, lose your support and accommodation, and it will affect your asylum claim.”

“Men and Women Are Equal”

A separate section addresses gender equality. “In the UK, men and women are equal,” the guide states. “This means: men and women are treated the same; women can work, study, travel and make their own choices.” The booklet specifies that husbands, fathers, and brothers may not stop women from working, control what they wear, or make decisions for them without agreement.

Public behavior also received detailed instruction stating, “It is illegal to harass people.” The materials prohibit asylum seekers from making “sexual comments to strangers, even as a compliment,” approaching someone repeatedly if “they are not interested,” or following someone or blocking their path.

The Home Office produced the materials using comic-style illustrations. Posters featuring the same content are “presumably to be displayed in asylum hotels and other types of migrant accommodation,” the Daily Mail reported.

Recent Cases

The materials arrive as Britain grapples with documented patterns. The Daily Mail catalogued six recent rape cases involving asylum seekers who arrived in 2024 and 2025. Three men—from Iran and Egypt—received a combined 60 years for a gang rape on Brighton beach. An Afghan who arrived in March 2024 was sentenced to 15 years for raping a 12-year-old girl four months later. A Turkish arrival raped an 18-year-old in Tamworth weeks after entering the country.

Thousands of Victims, Years of Silence

The context extends deeper. Between 1997 and 2013, approximately 1,400 children were sexually exploited in Rotherham alone by predominantly British-Pakistani gangs. Telford saw over 1,000 victims. Oxford counted 373. Operation Stovewood documented that 80% of Rotherham perpetrators were males of Pakistani heritage.

Investigations into these cases revealed systemic failures. Police and councils downplayed the scale. Council staff were instructed not to mention perpetrators’ ethnic origins. A culture of “misplaced ‘political correctness’” allowed abuse to continue for years.

A June 2025 audit by Baroness Casey found that “our collective failure to address questions about the ethnicity of grooming gangs has dominated political and institutional focus, with energy devoted to proving the point on one hand, or avoiding or playing it down on the other.”

“The Most Insane Thing I Have Ever Seen”

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp called the booklet evidence that immigrants are “coming from places and societies where attitudes towards women are completely incompatible with Western society.” He argued officials should “deport them” rather than “trying to train these mainly young, male illegal immigrants to behave in a civilised way towards women.”

Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf described the materials as “one of the most insane things I have ever seen,” arguing they prove “the Government knows” asylum seekers “are a menace.”

The Home Office responded with a single sentence: “We expect everyone who comes to the UK to abide by our laws.” Consequences for violations would include “refusal of their asylum claim and removal from the UK.”

Last year, 41,472 people arrived by small boat; 34,201 were male. The largest nationalities were Eritrean, Afghan, Iranian, Sudanese, and Somali. Each now receives instruction on what Britain considers consent.

The Islamic Society of North America will host its 63rd annual convention at Detroit’s Huntington Place Convention Center over Labor Day weekend, September 4-7, 2026. The four-day gathering is expected to draw tens of thousands of attendees and featured keynote speakers. A related ISNA Day conference in Tampa on October 24 will feature additional speakers.

This year’s speaker lineup includes Pakistani cleric Mufti Tariq Masood, who admitted in a 2021 sermon to forcing his 13-year-old niece into marriage and was denied entry to Canada over what activists called “pedophilic rhetoric.” New Jersey Imam Mohammad Qatanani, convicted of Hamas membership by an Israeli military court in 1993 and currently fighting deportation from the United States, is scheduled for the Tampa event. Also speaking is Abdul El-Sayed, who won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary on August 4 and whose father-in-law served on ISNA’s Founders Committee.

2026 Convention Speakers

Mufti Tariq Masood: Child Marriage Advocate

Pakistani cleric Mufti Tariq Masood is scheduled to speak on a panel about “avoiding mental illness in youth.” In a 2021 sermon, he admitted to forcing his 13-year-old niece into marriage and advised his followers to do the same with their young female relatives. Masood also said it was a husband’s decision whether his wife can attend college, citing Sharia law. He spent the sermon “advising all to engage their daughters in prepubescent marriages,” according to the Pakistan Observer.

Canadian activists urged the government to block Masood’s visa in 2024 over his “pedophilic rhetoric.”

Abdul El-Sayed: Michigan Senate Nominee

Abdul El-Sayed is speaking on a panel titled “Cultivating God Awareness in a Turmoiled America.” His father-in-law, Jukaku Tayeb, was a member of ISNA’s Founders Committee and served as president of CAIR-Michigan.

El-Sayed has attacked President Trump and Republicans as “pedophile protectors” over Epstein files. Yet he will share a stage with Masood, who admitted on video to forcing a child into marriage. El-Sayed will appear on a panel moderated by Syed Imtiaz Ahmad, ISNA’s president, who also moderates Masood’s youth mental health panel.

Siraj Wahhaj

Brooklyn imam Siraj Wahhaj, confirmed as a speaker at the 2026 convention, was named an unindicted co-conspirator by U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White in the trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Wahhaj provided testimony in defense of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh” and former leader of the Egyptian terrorist organization Gama’a al-Islamiyya. Rahman was convicted of conspiracy to murder Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and of bombing conspiracy related to a plot to bomb the FBI headquarters and New York tunnels.

During his testimony, Wahhaj called the terrorist leader a “respected scholar” and praised him as “bold, as a strong preacher of Islam.”

In a November 1991 lecture at the Islamic Association of Northern Texas, Wahhaj advocated for establishing an Islamic state in America: “Where ever you came from, you came to America. And you came for one reason—for one reason only to establish Allah’s deen.” He predicted the demise of America unless it accepted “the Islamic agenda” and said Muslims should be involved in politics because “politics are a weapon to use in the cause of Islam.”

Other 2026 Speakers

Imam Mohammad Qatanani, scheduled for ISNA’s Tampa event, was convicted of Hamas membership by an Israeli military court in 1993 and is currently fighting deportation from the United States.

Dr. Arif Alvi, keynote speaker and Pakistan’s president from 2018 to 2023, declined to amend Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy laws after two Christian brothers were sentenced to death for allegedly insulting Muhammad.

Yasir Qadhi, appearing on several panels, delivered a 2001 sermon recommending a book titled The Hoax of the Holocaust, called the Holocaust "false propaganda," and said "Hitler never intended to mass-destroy the Jews," according to a 2010 report in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

ISNA’s Muslim Brotherhood Roots

ISNA’s speaker choices make sense only when understood in the context of the organization’s founding and structure. ISNA appears at the top of a list of 29 organizations in a May 22, 1991 internal memorandum authored by Muslim Brotherhood operative Mohamed Akram. The document, seized by the FBI and entered as evidence in federal court, describes a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” with an explicit goal: “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Federal prosecutors included ISNA on a list of unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation prosecution, listing it among “individuals/entities who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood.” Though U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis ruled the government had violated ISNA’s Fifth Amendment rights by not sealing the list, he found “ample evidence to establish the association between ISNA and Hamas” and declined to strike ISNA from the list.

ISNA’s Plainfield, Indiana headquarters complex was built with $21 million from Muslim Brotherhood leaders including Yusuf al-Qaradawi — who issued a fatwa calling for the killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq — and from Youssef Nada and the emir of Qatar.

Current ISNA board member Muzammil Siddiqi, who also serves on the board of NAIT, has lectured extensively on jihad, telling audiences “when people really carry on Jihad, they carry on the Islam in its peak” and warning that “no people have ever neglected Jihad except they became humiliated.” In a 2001 online exchange, he stated that “once more people accept Islam, inshaallah, this will lead to the implementation of Sharia in all areas.” Siddiqi will also be a keynote speaker at the conference.

This September in Detroit, thousands will gather at Huntington Place Convention Center. Federal agencies will staff recruiting booths. A cleric who forced his 13-year-old niece into marriage will advise parents on youth mental health. An imam convicted of Hamas membership will deliver remarks in Tampa. Holocaust deniers will appear on panels. And Abdul El-Sayed — who won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary three weeks ago — will take the stage alongside them.

Hours after Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan's Democratic Senate primary on August 5, 2026, the Muslim Brotherhood's official news site ran a front-page article celebrating his victory. Egyptian media outlets and activists who overthrew the Brotherhood in 2013 immediately raised alarms about El-Sayed's alleged Brotherhood connections.

Arabic-language newspapers, social media figures, and Egyptian religious officials pointed to a 2012 statement circulating on social media that they say shows El-Sayed supported Mohamed Morsi's dictatorial decree, alongside his current criticism of Egypt's government and documented family ties to U.S. organizations named as Muslim Brotherhood affiliates in federal terrorism-financing cases. As Ikhwan Online featured El-Sayed's photo under a headline framing the win as a defeat of "Zionist" forces, Egyptian voices from Cairo to Dearborn are telling Americans: we lived under Brotherhood rule, and we're warning you what we see.

Share

Egyptian Warnings

Egyptian activists and writers who overthrew the Brotherhood in 2013 are now issuing sharp warnings. Hossam Al-Ghamry, a prominent Egyptian journalist, posted on X that El-Sayed was a “Brotherhood zombie” who “sheds crocodile tears on democracy in Egypt.” Al-Ghamry’s post alleges that El-Sayed signed a statement published in Al-Ahram newspaper on November 25, 2012, supporting Mohamed Morsi’s constitutional declaration. Cross Currents has not independently verified the existence of this document, though the claim circulates widely among Egyptian expat communities on social media.

Egyptian writer Abdel Gawad Abu Kab warned in Asharq Al-Awsat not to celebrate El-Sayed, calling his history “hostile to Egypt.” Dr. Khaled Montaser, writing in the same outlet, denounced El-Sayed’s vaccine claims as “lies.” Sheikh Ahmed Turki, head of the Senate Religious Affairs Committee, said El-Sayed’s comments “insult Egypt.”

The 2012 Constitutional Declaration

The Egyptian criticism centers on a document Al-Ghamry and others cite from November 2012 which they claimed El-Sayed signed. On November 22, 2012, President Mohamed Morsi from the Muslim Brotherhood issued a constitutional declaration granting himself sweeping powers. The decree placed his decisions above judicial review, immunized the constitutional assembly from dissolution, and granted Morsi authority to “take any measures” to protect the revolution.

The declaration sparked massive protests across Egypt. Critics called it a power grab that made Morsi a “new pharaoh.” The move accelerated the political crisis that led to the military’s removal of Morsi on July 3, 2013, after millions demonstrated against Brotherhood rule.

What Further Angered the Egyptians

El-Sayed told The New Arab that Egypt “lacks democracy” and that he does not want U.S. taxpayer money used to impose a “strangling grip” on Egyptians. He recalled childhood visits to Egypt, saying he “might have been a taxi driver” if his father had not migrated to the United States. He also claimed that being born in Egypt rather than the U.S. would have meant “I might not have lived past the age of five” due to vaccine shortages—a statement Egyptian doctors disputed.

The candidate opposes unconditional U.S. military aid to Egypt, Israel, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, calling such aid support for “genocide, apartheid, or a war we don’t need to fight.”

The Brotherhood Celebrates

The Brotherhood’s official news site, Ikhwan Online, ran a front-page article the day after El-Sayed’s primary win, featuring his photo and framing the victory as a defeat of “Zionist” forces. The site’s content was reported by The Midwesterner, which noted the Brotherhood website highlighted El-Sayed’s call to end unconditional U.S. military aid to what it termed the “Zionist occupation” and pointed to growing division in the Democratic Party over U.S.-Israel policy.

The celebration was not limited to one outlet. Pro-Hamas Palestinian media Shehab News described El-Sayed as an “American Muslim of Egyptian descent” whose victory came “despite his opponent’s campaign having received over $60 million, most of which came from pro-Israel groups.” Sabereen News, which supports Iran-backed Iraqi militias, noted that AIPAC had spent $36 million backing Stevens. The ISNAD Foundation— founded by Turkey-based, Muslim Brotherhood-linked Egyptian filmmaker Ezzeldeen Dwedar—congratulated El-Sayed on defeating “the Zionist AIPAC candidate” and asserted he “rejects the military coup and military rule in Egypt.”

Family and Funding Ties

El-Sayed’s father-in-law, Jukaku Tayeb, sits on the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) Founders Committee and served as CAIR-Michigan president from 2005 to 2010. Both organizations were named unindicted co-conspirators in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing case, in which federal prosecutors identified ISNA as a Muslim Brotherhood member.

Tayeb donated $200,000 to the Fighting for Michigan super PAC supporting El-Sayed—nearly half the PAC’s total first-quarter 2026 fundraising. Fox News reported that El-Sayed’s campaign received more than $115,000 from at least 41 donors affiliated with CAIR, including senior CAIR leaders Manal Fakhoury, Eyas Abdeen, and Emad Sabbah.

CAIR has been designated a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates and was labeled as such by Texas and Florida governors under 2025 executive orders.

A Pattern Egyptians Recognize

For Egyptians who lived through 2011–2013, the pattern is familiar: a charismatic figure with Brotherhood ties rises through democratic politics while the organization celebrates from the sidelines. The Dearborn-centered Islamic community merged with Michigan’s progressive left to deliver El-Sayed’s narrow victory, replicating the coalition-building that brought Morsi to power in Egypt’s 2012 election.

Instagram posts warning about El-Sayed now circulate among Egyptian Americans, many of whom fled after the Brotherhood’s brief rule. Their message: we’ve seen this before, and we know how it ends. El-Sayed will face Republican Mike Rogers in the November 2026 general election.

Massachusetts lawmakers are advancing the nation’s first permanent, taxpayer-funded state commission dedicated exclusively to a single religion—Islam—raising constitutional questions and exposing a network of organizations with documented ties to designated terrorist financing operations.

Senate Bill 2134, which cleared initial committees and now sits in the Senate Ways and Means Committee, would establish an 11-member panel of Muslims with authority to recommend co-religionists for government appointments, research “Islamophobia,” and evaluate hate crime statutes for potential amendments. The bill wasn’t merely supported by outside advocacy groups—it was directly co-authored by them.

Who Wrote the Bill

State Senator Jamie Eldridge and Representative Vanna Howard didn’t just consult outside organizations when drafting S.2134. According to Eldridge’s own press release, the sponsors “collaborated with” Jetpac, a political infrastructure organization whose stated mission is to “build American Muslim political infrastructure and increase the community’s influence.”

That collaboration extended to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which hosted a June 10, 2025 lobby day featuring 150 participants and opening remarks from both sponsors.

CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial, where five HLF leaders were convicted of funneling more than $12 million to Hamas. The Fifth Circuit later ruled the public naming violated the organizations’ due process rights, though the underlying trial evidence remains in the record.

The connection between Jetpac and Senator Eldridge runs deeper than policy collaboration. Jetpac’s current Executive Director, Mohammed Missouri, previously worked on Eldridge’s staff before joining the organization in 2019.

The Network Behind the Commission

Jetpac operates in coordination with CAIR-Massachusetts and the Islamic Center of Boston (Wayland), according to investigative findings reported by the Daily Signal. ICB Wayland’s president, Farah Abbas, publicly endorsed the legislation in Eldridge’s press release.

That same Islamic center allegedly held a fundraising dinner in October 2025 for United Hands Relief, a charity intertwined with Baitulmaal. United Hands Relief’s CEO, Suleiman Alghanem, ran Baitulmaal from 2007 to 2017, and its communications director previously worked there as well, according to his LinkedIn profile and Investigative Project on Terrorism reporting.

Baitulmaal has been accused of ties to Hamas through its membership in the Union of Good, which the U.S. Treasury Department designated in 2008 as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization for funneling money to Hamas. An Investigative Project on Terrorism report documented Baitulmaal’s contributions to Gaza-based charities with ties to the Popular Resistance Committees, a terrorist organization designated by Israel in 2006.

Baitulmaal’s current CEO, Mazen Mokhtar, previously served as Executive Director of the Muslim American Society (MAS) from 2013 to 2018. MAS was established in 1993 as the Muslim Brotherhood’s American arm, according to federal court evidence. Mokhtar has been quoted as describing suicide bombings as “an effective method of attacking the enemy and continuing jihad.”

What the Commission Would Do

The bill’s text grants the commission eight specific responsibilities, including the authority to “identify and recommend qualified American Muslims for appointive positions at all levels of government” and “evaluate the commonwealth’s hate crime statutes” to determine “whether any amendments would better protect residents from Islamophobia.”

The 11 commission members—all required to “demonstrate a commitment to the Muslim American community”—would be appointed by Governor Maura Healey, legislative leadership, the attorney general, and other state officials. “No other group in Massachusetts is granted a permanent government body with an official pipeline for placing its people in positions of power,” Amy Mek, founder of the RAIR Foundation, told the Daily Signal.

Constitutional Concerns and the Current Status

In October 2025, a Norfolk Superior Court judge granted a preliminary injunction blocking Catholic statues outside a Quincy public safety building, ruling the display likely violated Article 3 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. That provision states “no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law.” The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has since heard arguments in the case, raising questions about whether S.2134’s single-religion commission could withstand similar scrutiny.

Representative Randy Fine (R-FL) criticized the bill on X, writing: “They lecture us about ‘separation of church and state’ while funneling your tax dollars into a Muslim-only DEI commission. No religious group gets preferential treatment with our money. Not now. Not ever.”

The bill received a favorable committee report in November 2025, an “ought to pass” recommendation in January 2026, and currently awaits action in the Senate Ways and Means Committee — the final hurdle before a floor vote.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani held what the Muslim American Society called a “productive meeting” with the executive director of MAS Brooklyn alongside representatives of MAS-NY and the MAS Youth Center — an organization federal prosecutors described in a 2008 court filing as “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.”

The sit-down, announced on MAS’s social channels this month, comes as MAS leaders continue to fill senior posts in the new administration and as the group’s Brooklyn youth center faces ongoing scrutiny for hosting a fundraiser where vendors sold merchandise featuring imagery of Hamas, Hezbollah, and PFLP figures.

MAS was designated a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates in 2014 alongside the Muslim Brotherhood. That New York’s mayor would grant three MAS chapters an official audience — months after the fundraiser controversy and while City Council-approved MAS funding remains under active review — marks an extraordinary elevation of a network long flagged by U.S. and allied governments.

What MAS Is

The Muslim American Society was registered as an Illinois corporation on June 11, 1993. According to a 2004 Chicago Tribune investigation cited in subsequent research, Mohammed Mahdi Akef — who later became the Supreme Guide of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood — helped found MAS by lobbying for its creation during trips to the United States. The Tribune reported that Brotherhood members voted to operate under the “Muslim American Society” name and agreed not to publicly identify as “the Brotherhood” — a branding decision designed, according to documents cited by the paper, to be “more publicly active” while limiting explicit Brotherhood identification.

The Tribune further reported that internal MAS training materials instructed members on how to respond if asked about Brotherhood ties: leaders were told to say they were “an independent group called the Muslim American Society.” The same documents reportedly provided guidance on issuing generic condemnations of terrorism without condemning violent jihad against Israel.

The organization’s origins were later described under oath. In March 2012, Abdurahman Alamoudi — a convicted terrorism financier who had previously served as a U.S. government Muslim affairs advisor — testified in federal court in northern Virginia that MAS “was created as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in America, and continues to serve that function today.” Federal prosecutors made a similar assertion in a 2008 court filing tied to the Holy Land Foundation prosecution — the largest terrorism-financing case in U.S. history — describing MAS as “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.”

In November 2014, the United Arab Emirates designated MAS as a terrorist organization on a list of 83 groups that also included the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, and ISIS. MAS has publicly disputed the designation.

The Meeting

The recent post from the MAS Youth Center stated that the Brooklyn executive director, representing MAS-NY, MAS Brooklyn, and the MAS Youth Center, “met with Mayor Mamdani and his team in a productive meeting to advocate for the needs of the Muslim community.”

The MAS Youth Center is the same Bath Avenue facility that hosted the January 18 “Thrift4Sudan” fundraiser, where vendors sold key chains, stickers, and pins in support of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, according to the New York Post. The merchandise reportedly featured reverential images of Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar, and a masked figure resembling the late Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida, alongside items bearing terror-group logos and slogans calling for the destruction of Israel.

MAS Leadership Inside City Hall

MAS’s access to the Mayor did not begin with this meeting. MAS-NY announced in November 2025 that its executive director Sherif Ahmed and MAS Youth Center political director Hannah Towfeik had been appointed to Mamdani’s mayoral transition team, which the incoming administration tasked with recommending personnel and policy for City Hall.

MAS-NY leadership also includes Abdullah Akl, who is also an organizer with Within Our Lifetime, an anti-Israel group behind repeated New York City rallies where participants have chanted pro-Hamas slogans. According to Canary Mission, Akl has publicly voiced support for “resistance” following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.

Taxpayer Funding Continues

MAS’s Brooklyn and Staten Island operations received $85,000 in NYC Council discretionary funds this fiscal year — $70,000 from Councilwoman Kayla Santosuosso and $15,000 from Councilwoman Alexa Avilés — following the January fundraiser controversy.

The nonprofit had previously collected more than $265,000 in Council discretionary funds over three years. Council Speaker Julie Menin initially froze $80,000 pending investigation; the funds were later restored after MAS committed in writing to enhanced vendor screening, according to a Council spokesman.

International and Federal Actions

The UAE’s 2014 designation followed years of research by Emirati and Egyptian security services into the Brotherhood’s global network.

In 2026, the U.S. Treasury designated multiple Muslim Brotherhood chapters as Foreign Terrorist Organizations under Executive Order 14362, and the State Department designated the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood as an FTO in March. A Senate Judiciary hearing in May titled “Hidden in Plain Sight: Confronting the Muslim Brotherhood Network in America” and a July House Oversight hearing on “The Muslim Brotherhood’s Global Threat” examined U.S.-based Brotherhood-linked entities as national-security concerns. The U.S. government has not designated MAS itself.

A viral clip of streamer Sneako declaring New York an “Islamic State” and saying “Islam will be in every household” spread this week because it sounded absurd and theatrical. Taken literally, the claim is false: New York remains a secular city governed by constitutional law, and Muslim New Yorkers are still a minority. But the clip resonated because it exaggerated something real. Over the last decade, Muslim identity, Islamic institutions, and progressive politics have become far more visible and politically consequential in New York than at any point in the post-9/11 era.

The transformation is not simply demographic. It is organizational, ideological, and institutional—and it has been bankrolled and organized by networks with documented ties to extremist movements.

Following the money and the ideology

Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign drew its largest institutional backing from groups linked to organizations federal lawmakers have described as having “deep ties to terrorist organizations.” The New York Post reported that the Unity and Justice Fund PAC—which shares addresses and personnel with CAIR Action—gave Mamdani’s campaign $120,000, making it one of his biggest single donors.

CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial, where prosecutors presented evidence showing the group received “seed money” from Hamas and transferred funds for “consulting services” to a Hamas-linked charity.

Radical activist Linda Sarsour, described as a mentor to Mamdani, stated at CAIR’s 2025 Leadership Conference: “PACs that have supported Zohran, or a particular PAC that has supported Zohran is probably over 80% of Muslim-American donors in this country.”

This is not incidental. Muslim political organizing in New York has moved from the margins to the center—and it has done so with institutional backing from groups that U.S. authorities and lawmakers have repeatedly flagged for extremist ties.

The ideological package deal

Mamdani’s campaign drew heavily from the Democratic Socialists of America, an organization that justifies terrorism as resistance. On October 7, 2023—the day Hamas murdered 1,200 Israelis—DSA’s national organization issued a statement expressing “steadfast solidarity with Palestine” without condemning or even naming Hamas. DSA’s NYC chapter promoted a rally the next day where protesters chanted “Globalize the Intifada.”

The Guardian reported that DSA’s stances on foreign conflicts have become a defining part of its appeal to younger voters. The New York Post reported that Democratic leaders privately acknowledged ideological purity tests—not just economic populism—drove recent socialist primary victories.

The concern is not Muslim civic participation. The concern is that Muslim political ascent has been funded and organized by groups with documented extremist ties, amplified by mosques hosting calls for religious violence, and entangled with far-left movements that justify terrorism and treat dissent as bigotry.

Share

A city that hasn’t reckoned with what it elected

That shift in New York affects school calendars, coalition politics, nonprofit funding, policing priorities, foreign-policy posturing, campus culture, and the unwritten rules governing what can be said, questioned, or criticized in public life. And it has happened faster than the city’s institutions—or its citizens—have had time to reckon with.

The Sneako clip went viral because it converted a genuine civic transformation into a meme. The real story is more serious. New York’s Muslim political ascent is a fact. The question is whether New Yorkers understand who funded it, what ideology drove it, and what comes next.

The San Juan Unified School District in California accepted over $175,000 from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in fiscal year 2024 — an organization that two U.S. state governors have officially designated as a foreign terrorist organization, and that the FBI suspended all formal contacts with in 2009 over evidence linking its founders to Hamas. Documents obtained by the watchdog group Defending Education reveal extensive financial ties between the 40,000-student district and CAIR, including youth programming inside schools and CAIR’s participation in strategic planning committees — raising urgent questions about institutional oversight, student safety, and the protection of American values in public education.

Deep Partnership Extended Beyond Funding

Emails obtained by Defending Education reveal that CAIR’s involvement with San Juan Unified extended far beyond monetary donations. In March 2024, a CAIR youth coordinator thanked district officials for inviting the organization to “Starr King’s parent night and the SJUSD Strategic Core planning,” noting that CAIR had “successfully launched” a six-week Leadership Development program at Starr King, an elementary and middle school in the district.

A June 2024 email confirmed that “youth from the district” were attending CAIR workshops. The partnership dates back to at least 2022, when a memorandum of understanding showed CAIR provided $180,000 to the district — bringing total documented funding to over $355,000 across two fiscal years. CAIR representatives maintained ongoing communication with district staff about grant reporting requirements and discussed expanding programs to additional schools.

Student Privacy Concerns Raised

In May 2024, a CAIR representative told district staff in an email: “Along with your monthly invoice reports you are required to submit the participants served report.” A district employee then asked a colleague, “We are using CAIR to pay for the attached IntelliBricks invoices. How do I get a list of the participants served?”

According to the Washington Examiner, documents indicate that “CAIR requested student names, and district personnel provided them.” The district’s provision of student names to CAIR as part of grant reporting appears to raise concerns under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which prohibits schools from disclosing personally identifiable information from education records to third parties without parental consent.

When Defending Education submitted a public records request seeking documentation about the CAIR funding, the district provided documents containing a list of refugee students with their full names and “home language” — including Arabic, Dari, Farsi, Pashto, Russian, and Ukrainian — completely unredacted.

CAIR Executive Celebrated Hamas Attack

Following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel that killed over 1,200 people including 46 Americans, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad stated at a conference: “I was happy to see people breaking the siege...the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense, have the right to defend themselves, and yes, Israel, as an occupying power, does not have that right to self-defense.” The White House subsequently distanced itself from CAIR following the remarks.

In October 2025, CAIR-Ohio Director Khaled Tuurani participated in an online conference alongside Majed al-Zeer, a Hamas official whom the U.S. Treasury designated as a Specially Designated Terrorist in 2024 for his role in Hamas fundraising efforts. The George Washington University Program on Extremism documented that both appeared on panels for an event whose purpose was to plan strategy “in the Light of Al-Aqsa Flood” — Hamas’s name for the October 7 massacre.

FBI Suspended Contact Over Hamas Evidence

In 2009, the FBI explained to U.S. Senator Jon Kyl that it had “suspended all formal contacts between CAIR and the FBI” due to evidence from the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial linking CAIR and its founders to Hamas. FBI Assistant Director Richard C. Powers wrote that “evidence was introduced that demonstrated a relationship among CAIR, individual CAIR founders...and the Palestine Committee,” which federal prosecutors showed was created by the Muslim Brotherhood to support Hamas politically and financially in the United States.

The FBI stated it could not resume relations “until we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and Hamas.” That determination has never been made. CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad — the latter still serving as executive director participated in a secretly recorded 1993 Philadelphia meeting where Hamas members and supporters discussed ways to “derail” U.S.-led peace efforts following the Oslo Accords, according to FBI wiretaps introduced at trial. CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case, the largest terrorism financing prosecution in U.S. history.

Two State Governors Issue Terrorist Designations

Texas Governor Greg Abbott designated both the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as foreign terrorist organizations in November 2025, citing the groups’ goals to “forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam’s ‘mastership of the world.’” The designation authorizes heightened enforcement and prohibits both organizations from purchasing land in Texas.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued a similar executive order the following month, noting that CAIR “was designated as an unindicted co-conspirator by the United States Government in the largest terrorism-financing case in American history.” The order directed Florida law enforcement to “undertake all lawful measures to prevent unlawful activities in Florida by the terrorist organizations designated.”

In Congress, Representative Randy Fine introduced H.R. 4097, the “Designate CAIR as a Terrorist Organization Act,” which directs the Secretary of State to conduct a formal review of whether CAIR meets federal criteria for designation as a foreign terrorist organization. The United Arab Emirates, a U.S. ally in the Middle East, designated CAIR as a terrorist organization in 2014.

Risks to American Educational Institutions

The San Juan partnership represents a troubling pattern of CAIR embedding itself within American civic institutions despite evidence linking the organization to designated terrorist networks. The district’s leadership allowed an organization that the FBI suspended contact with and that two U.S. governors designated as a terrorist group to operate youth programs inside schools, participate in strategic planning, and potentially access student information without adequate transparency or parental notification.

By granting CAIR involvement with refugee students, many from countries affected by Islamic extremism, and including the organization in district-level planning committees, San Juan Unified prioritized funding over institutional safeguards. The lack of public disclosure about the partnership, combined with concerns about student privacy protections, raises fundamental questions about accountability in American public education and the due diligence required when accepting funds from controversial organizations.

On June 1, 2026, the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) jointly announced the “Resilience and Protection Waqf,” a multi-million-dollar irrevocable endowment paired with a $1 million matching campaign to fund mosque security trainings, build a national “peer group” of mosque staff, and pursue federal and state security grants. T

he partnership formalizes operational coordination between the two largest Muslim Brotherhood-linked institutions in the United States: NAIT, which holds title to deeds for hundreds of American mosques, and CAIR, which will conduct the trainings. The launch comes just months after Texas Governor Greg Abbott designated the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as foreign terrorist organizations, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued a parallel designation, and President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14362 initiating Foreign Terrorist Organization designations for Muslim Brotherhood chapters abroad. The structure of the new endowment — a waqf, legally irrevocable in perpetuity — appears designed to insulate the arrangement from any future enforcement action against either entity.

A Brotherhood Blueprint Names Both Organizations

The 1991 Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America, authored by Muslim Brotherhood operative Mohamed Akram and seized by the FBI in a Virginia raid, described the Brotherhood’s mission in the United States as “a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house.”

The document identified NAIT as organization number eight on its roster of Brotherhood entities and “friends” in North America. CAIR did not yet exist when the memorandum was written — it was founded in 1994 by the Palestine Committee, which DeSantis’s executive order identifies as “an organization affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and created to support Hamas in the United States.”

Unindicted Co-Conspirators in the HLF Trial

In 2007, federal prosecutors filed a list of unindicted co-conspirators in United States v. Holy Land Foundation — the largest terror-finance prosecution in American history, which ended in 2008 with convictions for funneling more than $12 million to Hamas.

The filing identified NAIT and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) as members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, and CAIR as a member of “the US Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee and/or its organizations.” When CAIR and NAIT moved to strike their names, the district court refused, ruling that the government had “produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR [and others] with HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine, and with Hamas.” The Fifth Circuit later found only a procedural error in how the list was filed; it did not disturb the underlying evidentiary finding.

The Real-Estate Choke Point

NAIT was established in 1973 in Indiana by the Muslim Students Association — Wikipedia notes it was founded “by some of the same Muslim Brotherhood members who started the MSA.” The trust holds title to more than 300 Islamic centers across 42 states, an arrangement that represents roughly 27 percent of all American mosques by CAIR’s own historical estimate.

Senate testimony cited by Global Muslim Brotherhood Watch places NAIT’s deed share at between 50 and 79 percent. The Philanthropy Roundtable documents that “some of the founders of the trust were members of the Muslim Brotherhood” and that NAIT has operated with “extensive funding from Saudi Arabia.” Former FBI special agent Robert Stauffer, who investigated Brotherhood finances in the 1980s, described NAIT as serving “as a financial holding company for Muslim Brotherhood-related groups,” with wire transfers received from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, and other states.

What the Partnership Actually Does

Under the new waqf, CAIR will update its “Best Practices for Mosque and Community Safety manual,” conduct regional security seminars for mosque and Islamic school staff, and build “a continuous peer group” receiving “real-time security alerts” across NAIT’s mosque network. The endowment also commits to helping institutions apply for and obtain federal, state, and local government grants.

In effect, the arrangement gives a state-designated terrorist organization an operational training footprint, a personnel directory, and a real-time communications channel inside the largest network of mosque properties in America — while routing taxpayer-funded security grants through that same infrastructure.

A Designation Cascade

The federal posture shifted dramatically in late 2025. Trump’s Executive Order 14362 directed the State and Treasury Departments to designate Brotherhood chapters as Foreign Terrorist Organizations; Treasury subsequently sanctioned the Egyptian, Jordanian, and Lebanese branches.

Abbott’s November 18 proclamation prohibited the Brotherhood and CAIR from acquiring real property in Texas. DeSantis’s December 8 order directed Florida agencies to deny contracts, funds, or benefits to either group. In Washington, Representative Randy Fine has introduced H.R. 4097, the “Designate CAIR as a Terrorist Organization Act.”

The Significance

The waqf structure is not incidental. A waqf is, by Islamic legal definition, perpetual and irrevocable — the principal cannot be liquidated, and the arrangement is meant to outlive its founders. Launched within months of three separate terrorist designations targeting its co-sponsors, the Resilience and Protection Waqf institutionalizes a coordination channel that would be difficult to dismantle even if CAIR were ultimately designated at the federal level.

For policymakers focused on the Brotherhood’s American infrastructure, the question is no longer whether NAIT and CAIR coordinate. It is whether the partnership they just announced — in writing, on the record — falls within the conduct the federal government, Texas, and Florida have already moved to restrict.

On June 1, 2026, UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood cancelled the Electronic Travel Authorisations (ETAs) of Young Turks host Cenk Uygur and his nephew, Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, blocking both from speaking at SXSW London and, in Uygur’s case, the Oxford Union. The Home Office determined that their presence “may not be conducive to the public good.” According to The Times, Mahmood’s decision on Uygur was driven in part by his on-camera dismissal of evidence relating to the grooming gangs in towns such as Rotherham — where an independent inquiry identified an estimated 1,400 child victims abused between 1997 and 2013.

Piker, meanwhile, has a documented record of statements that Elon Musk and others have characterized as “incitement to murder.” The decisions mark one of the most consequential UK actions to date against high-reach online figures whose recorded statements officials say cross the threshold of acceptable public discourse.

Not a “Ban” — A Revoked Privilege

Despite Uygur’s claim he was “banned for criticizing Israel,” the Home Office did not formally bar either commentator. It cancelled the ETAs that allow US travelers visa-free entry for stays up to six months.

Both men remain free to apply for a standard visa like any other foreign national. The Home Office stated that “decisions to refuse or cancel an ETA on these grounds are based solely on an assessment of the potential risk an individual may pose to UK society.”

Rotherham: The Evidence Uygur Dismissed

The Jay Report, published in August 2014, documented that at least 1,400 children — some as young as 11 — had been raped, trafficked, and intimidated in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, “predominantly by men of Pakistani heritage.” Professor Alexis Jay found that some council staff feared identifying perpetrators’ ethnic origins “for fear of being thought racist,” and that senior managers had “underplayed” the scale of the problem.

The National Crime Agency’s Operation Stovewood has since identified more than 1,100 victims and secured 36 convictions. The Times reported that Uygur appeared to dismiss this documented evidence during a conversation with Piers Morgan, where he was widely criticized for downplaying the scale of the scandal.

Uygur’s Pattern of Denialism

Uygur’s Rotherham comments fit a longer pattern. He spent years denying the Armenian Genocide — the namesake of his network, “The Young Turks,” refers to the Ottoman political movement responsible for the 1915 mass murder of over a million Armenians.

CNN’s Chris Cuomo grilled Uygur on that record during his 2019 Congressional run. After the ETA cancellation, Uygur wrote that “no amount of censorship will get us to stop telling the truth.”

Piker: A Documented Record of Calls to Violence

Piker’s record extends well beyond rhetorical excess. In resurfaced clips compiled in September 2025, Piker told his audience:

“Kill them! Kill those motherfkers! Murder those motherfkers in the streets! Let the streets soak in their red capitalist bloods.” In a separate clip, he urged viewers: “You need to be gutting them… you need to be shanking these motherf**kers… and letting their intestines just ride on the stage.”

Elon Musk responded by calling the statements “incitement to murder.” Piker has separately said America “deserved 9/11.” Piker has also recently been under scrutiny for his alleged ties the Neville Roy Singham network and his links to the Communist China Party (CCP).

A Policy Applied Across the Spectrum

The framing of the decision matters. Countries possess sovereign authority to determine who crosses their borders, and ETA cancellation is not a “ban” — it is a refusal of a privileged visa-free shortcut. Both Uygur and Piker can still apply for visas under standard scrutiny.

The Home Office under Mahmood has also blocked 11 foreign nationals described by Sir Keir Starmer as “far-right agitators” ahead of a Tommy Robinson-led rally in central London, including Polish politician Dominik Tarczynski, Belgian politician Filip Dewinter, and Dutch activist Eva Vlaardingerbroek — indicating the policy is being applied across the ideological spectrum.

What is striking is not that two commentators lost a travel convenience, but what their records reveal: a media ecosystem in which dismissing documented child rape evidence, denying historical genocides, and calling for opponents to be gutted in the streets can build audiences in the millions. The UK’s decision does not silence Uygur or Piker — they retain global platforms reaching tens of thousands daily. It simply declines to fast-track their entry while their words remain on the record.

In a clip now circulating widely, Nicolas Kenn De Balinthazy — better known to his audience as SNEAKO — declared that “if everybody was Muslim, the way it should be, we would have world peace,” blaming human “ego” for the “chaos” he predicts “for years to come.” The 26-year-old streamer, who commands more than two million followers across platforms despite being permanently banned from Twitch for “extreme hateful conduct” and removed from YouTube and Kick, has spent the past year transforming a content brand built on shock-value commentary into an explicit religious-supremacist platform.

The remark arrives just weeks after Australia’s federal government imposed a lifetime entry ban on him, and only months after he was filmed in a Miami nightclub singing along to a song that samples a speech by Adolf Hitler. SNEAKO’s trajectory matters because his reach is not fringe — it includes a sitting big-city mayor who hosted him for an hour-long interview at the official mayoral residence.

Share

The Quote in Context

SNEAKO’s “everybody should be Muslim” statement is not an isolated theological musing. It follows an extended sit-down with Dr. Zakir Naik — the Indian Islamic televangelist barred from the United Kingdom, Canada, and Bangladesh over hate-speech concerns — and months of SNEAKO framing Islam as the singular cure for what he describes as Western moral collapse. On the podcast circuit, he has told audiences that his pre-conversion life was “destroyed” — in his telling, for the better — by his new faith, while warning that those who reject it are responsible for the world’s disorder.

A Documented Pattern of Extremist Rhetoric

SNEAKO’s religious-supremacist turn did not emerge in a vacuum. His public statements have been catalogued such as him wishing Adolf Hitler a “happy birthday” on multiple occasions and hosting a video series asking whether contemporary leaders are “worse than Hitler.” His commentary regularly traffics in totalizing claims — that “every conspiracy theory from the last century” can be reduced to a single villain, that “every politician” is owned by hidden forces, that “the West will inevitably fall.”

That rhetorical pattern — collapsing complex global events into a single enemy and a single solution — is the through-line connecting his earlier output to his current call for universal religious conversion.

The Miami Nightclub Incident, Platform Bans, and Mainstream Access

In January 2026, SNEAKO was filmed at Vendôme nightclub in Miami Beach alongside Nick Fuentes, Andrew and Tristan Tate, Myron Gaines, and Clavicular, singing along to Kanye West’s track “Heil Hitler” — a song that samples an actual Hitler speech and is banned from most U.S. streaming platforms.

SNEAKO has been permanently banned from Twitch under the platform’s “extreme hateful conduct” policy, removed from YouTube for what the company described as repeated policy violations, and barred from Kick. None of that prevented New York City Mayor Eric Adams from hosting him for an hour-long, cigar-smoking interview on the porch of Gracie Mansion on June 14, 2025 — an event Adams later claimed he did not know was happening and that the streamer had not been vetted.

Australia’s Lifetime Ban

On May 6, 2026, Australian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke cancelled SNEAKO’s visa and imposed a lifetime entry ban — the first high-profile invocation of provisions amended by Australia’s Parliament earlier this year. “We will use every power available to us” to stop “people coming to this country to spread hatred,” Burke told Sky News. Shadow home affairs minister Jonathon Duniam, in agreement, described SNEAKO as a “misogynist” who “praises Hitler.” SNEAKO responded on X with “Thanks for having me Australia.”

The “everybody should be Muslim” clip is the natural endpoint of a content arc that began with shock-jock provocation and has hardened, on camera, into an explicit demand for religious uniformity as the price of “world peace.” That demand is being delivered to a multi-million-strong audience of young men — by a creator who has been banned by every major streaming platform that hosted him, banned by an entire country, and welcomed at Gracie Mansion. The question is no longer what SNEAKO believes. It is who is still willing to give him a microphone.

This Memorial Day weekend, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and Muslim American Society (MAS) will host their 51st annual convention at the Baltimore Convention Center, expected to draw more than 25,000 attendees to one of the largest Muslim gatherings in North America. The three-day event, running May 23-25, 2026, will feature over 100 speakers—including individuals with alleged ties to terrorism and extremism—alongside sponsors currently under federal investigation for terror financing.

The convention’s reach extends from main-stage programming to targeted youth initiatives, creating what critics describe as a comprehensive ecosystem linking Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations, speakers who have called for violence, and charities designated as terrorist entities by foreign governments. As Baltimore promotes the convention’s economic impact, federal investigators and watchdog organizations have raised alarm about the networks convening under the guise of a community gathering.

Share

The Organizers and Their Alleged Muslim Brotherhood Links

ICNA, founded in 1968 as a “domestic affiliate” of Jamaat-e-Islami, explicitly states its goal is “to achieve the pleasure of Allah through the establishment of the Islamic system in this land.” The organization’s ideological foundation traces to Jamaat-e-Islami founder Maulana Syed Abdul A’la Maududi, who preached that followers “must strive to change the wrong basis of government, and seize all powers.”

Co-organizing the event is the Muslim American Society (MAS), which the Investigative Project on Terrorism describes as an organization with “strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.” In 2019, the MAS Philadelphia chapter uploaded a video to Facebook showing children at an event held in their building singing about “chopping off heads” and violence, prompting an investigation and public condemnation from MAS leadership.

The Speakers: A Roster of Extremism

The convention’s speaker lineup reads like a catalog of individuals who have alongside sponsors and partner organizations that have faced official scrutiny, state-level designations, or allegations concerning terrorism-linked networks

Mehdi Hasan, the British-American journalist and former MSNBC host who has made remarks in which he compared non-Muslims to “cattle” and “animals,” and disparaged LGBTQ individuals, calling homosexuals “pedophiles” and “sexual deviants.”

Siraj Wahhaj Federal prosecutors named Wahhaj as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing investigation, and he served as a character witness for Omar Abdel-Rahman—the “Blind Sheikh” who masterminded the attack that killed six people. Wahhaj has stated that “if only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate,” and expressed support for implementation of Sharia law including stoning for adultery and hand amputation for theft.

In a separate 2018 New Mexico case, his son Siraj Ibn Wahhaj was convicted of terrorism-related charges after prosecutors alleged firearms and tactical training to prepare for attacks against the government. Wahhaj’s brother-in-law was also convicted of terrorism charges, while Wahhaj’s sisters were convicted on kidnapping charges.

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), is another listed speaker whose record has drawn scrutiny from watchdog groups. The Anti-Defamation League has reported that Awad met with Muslim Brotherhood members as recently as 2022 and, in 2024, eulogized Sheikh Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, whom the U.S. Treasury designated in 2004 as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist for his support to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, including alleged recruiting for al-Qaeda training camps

The Money: Sponsors Under Federal Scrutiny

The convention’s funding sources reveal a network of organizations facing scrutiny from U.S. and international authorities. Several major sponsors are not independent charities but divisions of ICNA itself—an organizational structure that allows the parent organization to fund its own convention while maintaining the appearance of broad-based support.

According to ICNA’s own organizational chart, multiple convention sponsors are in-house divisions: ICNA Relief (Diamond sponsor), Young Muslims (youth wing), ICNA Dawah (outreach), Islamic Learning Foundation, ICNA Council for Social Justice, and MCNA (Muslim Children of North America). Additionally, Helping Hand for Relief and Development (HHRD)—also a Diamond sponsor—appears on ICNA’s organizational chart as part of the broader network.

Silver sponsor Islamic Relief USA is part of the broader Islamic Relief network, which has faced terrorism-financing allegations and foreign terror designations. In 2016, the FBI opened a criminal investigation into Islamic Relief, with the Office of Personnel Management confirming the case “could reasonably be expected to interfere with ongoing enforcement proceedings.”

HHRD, listed both as a Diamond sponsor and as part of ICNA’s organizational structure, is currently under investigation by USAID after the Middle East Forum reported the organization’s Islamist ties. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul demanded answers about a “$110K grant to terrorist-linked nonprofit.”

CAIR, listed as a Silver sponsor, was designated by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in 2025 as a foreign terrorist organization and transnational criminal organization under state authority. Separately, H.R. 4097 was introduced in Congress to direct the Secretary of State to review whether CAIR meets federal FTO criteria

The Youth Pipeline

The convention features extensive youth programming, including the 31st Annual Young Muslims Conference, Muslim Youth Debate Tournament, and separate tracks for children through Muslim Children of North America (MCNA)—both of which appear as ICNA divisions on the organization’s chart.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism has documented concerns about ICNA’s youth initiatives in a report titled “ICNA’s Radicalization Continues,” which examines the organization’s pro-Sharia public relations campaigns targeting young people.

Big Picture

As Baltimore promotes the convention’s economic benefits from 30,000 visitors filling hotels and restaurants, federal investigators continue examining the financial networks connecting the event’s sponsors. The convergence of speakers with documented extremism ties, charities that have been under federal scrutiny for terror financing, and Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizers raises questions about the oversight of large-scale gatherings that blend community programming with speakers and sponsors linked to violent extremism.

The revelation that multiple “sponsors” are actually ICNA’s own divisions further illustrates how the organization has constructed a self-reinforcing ecosystem where funding, ideology, and recruitment flow through interconnected entities. The convention represents not merely an annual religious gathering, but a nexus where ideology, funding, and recruitment intersect under the protection of First Amendment freedoms—while taxpayer dollars and charitable donations flow to organizations that multiple governments have connected to terrorist networks.

Grand Prairie, Texas canceled a June 1 Eid celebration at its city-owned Epic Waters Indoor Waterpark after Governor Greg Abbott threatened to withhold $530,000 in state funding. The event, organized by Aminah Knight to celebrate the Islamic holy day of Eid al-Adha, was initially advertised as “Muslim only” in promotional materials before being revised to emphasize modest dress requirements.

Abbott cited the early version of the flyer, arguing that reserving a taxpayer-funded facility for a single religious group violated constitutional principles. The city canceled the event hours after the governor’s deadline, raising questions about how religious accommodation operates at publicly owned facilities.

The “Muslim Only” Language

A flyer for the “Epic Eid” event initially described the celebration as “Muslim only” in two places. After the language generated controversy, organizer Aminah Knight changed the flyer to emphasize modest dress requirements instead. Knight told KERA News that the event’s goal was “to promote modesty and was never about excluding other faiths.”

The revised flyer specified that men must wear swim trunks and shirts, and women must wear “burkinis”, a full-body Islamic swimwear designed to meet religious modesty standards. Knight said she was “curating a space where people who value modesty can come together.”

Whatever Knight’s intent, the disconnect between the original promotional language and her later explanations reveals the tension at the center of the controversy. The flyer didn’t say “modesty required”, instead, it said “Muslim only.” When promotional materials for a public facility’s use communicate exclusion on the basis of religious identity, the language matters.

Public Ownership Creates Different Obligations

Epic Waters is a city-owned water park funded by taxpayers, though operated by a third-party company. Knight had rented the facility as a private event and paid associated fees. But private rental doesn’t eliminate the obligations that come with public ownership.

The governor’s office argued that Grand Prairie’s acceptance of state grants created compliance obligations with civil rights and nondiscrimination laws. Abbott’s letter warned that violating these rules could result in grant cancellation, repayment demands, and loss of future funding.

In his letter to Mayor Ron Jensen, the governor’s office drew a direct analogy:

“An event at a city-owned pool that was publicly and indiscriminately advertised as ‘Whites only’ would surely violate the Constitution... The same must be true here.”

Abbott posted on X: “Facilities funded by ALL taxpayers are not just for a subset of Texans.”

The comparison is legally instructive. Equal protection principles operate regardless of which group seeks preferential access to public resources.

How Accommodation Can Function as Exclusion

The event’s revised framing emphasized modesty rather than religion, but the practical effect merits examination. Burkinis are not standard American swimwear. They are religiously specific attire designed to meet Islamic modesty standards. Requiring them, along with swim shirts for men, creates what functions as a religious filter, even if technically open to anyone willing to comply.

Knight held a similar event in 2024 without incident. She told WCNC that she was “sad that something that was being done with such good intention, just for joy, has been turned into something that it’s not.” She called conservative pushback hypocritical, noting that “most Muslims are conservative” and that modest dress codes are “pretty conservative.”

The Line Between Liberty and Exclusion

Governor Abbott referenced a Texas law banning “Sharia Law” when addressing the celebration, and has previously targeted Muslim-related projects, including threatening funding for a Muslim-centric housing development.

But the core principle that public facilities funded by all cannot be reserved for some, operates independently of who enforces it or against whom. When cities accept state money, they accept the constraints that come with it, including nondiscrimination requirements in public accommodations.

The city issued a statement after Abbott’s ultimatum: “After further review and in the best interest of the City of Grand Prairie, the June 1 Eid event at Epic Waters Indoor Waterpark has been canceled.” The decision came hours after the deadline, ending what would have been a private rental that tested the boundaries of religious accommodation at taxpayer-funded facilities.

On May 10, 2026, the X analyst MaxNordau asked a sharp question: “Can someone explain what the hell Daniel Haqiqatjou and Hassan Shibly have to do with putting America First? Because this looks an awful lot like an Islamic supremacist scheme.”

He was reacting to a four-day cascade in which Nick Fuentes accused congressional candidate Dan Bilzerian of asking him how to assassinate Israeli ministers; Bilzerian called Fuentes a federal informant; ex-CAIR-Florida director Hassan Shibly intervened to defend Bilzerian and confirmed joint travel through France, Romania, and Dubai; and Visegrád 24 published video of Bilzerian on the ground in Doha wrapped in a khaffiyeh.

The question MaxNordau raised is the right one. The answer requires a fourth name — Daniel Haqiqatjou, the Harvard-educated polemicist behind The Muslim Skeptic — and an honest reading of why the entire network turned on Fuentes the same week.

What happened

The sequence began on May 7, 2026, when Fuentes announced on X that he was “switching sides and voting Democrat in 2026 to punish” the GOP, citing what he called the Trump administration’s broken promises on Iran and Israel. Bilzerian responded within hours, posting that “Nick Fuentes is a fed” and accusing him of “constant division, endless infighting, defending Epstein, then attacking a Christian man only to endorse a Jewish Democrat woman.”

On May 8, Fuentes counter-attacked, claiming that during their first meeting Bilzerian had ordered guests to put their phones in another room and asked him “how difficult it would be to assassinate Israeli government ministers.” Fuentes added that Bilzerian then invited him to Dubai and Qatar in late 2024, that he declined, and that Bilzerian was “ambushed by the FBI” on the way. Lucas Gage, a separate influencer, made a similar allegation, saying Bilzerian had asked him about killing Ben Shapiro under comparable conditions.

Bilzerian denied the assassination claim but conceded — under direct pressure from Fuentes — that he had been served a federal subpoena on the tarmac, that the trip included Corsica, Dubai, and Qatar, and that the destination involved discussions of “golden visa” status with Gulf governments while his father, convicted securities fraudster Paul Bilzerian, faced renewed federal scrutiny.

On May 9, two things happened. Hassan Shibly, ex-director of CAIR-Florida, posted a video from inside Bilzerian’s home, declaring Fuentes’ allegations “utter and complete lies,” and confirmed that he had personally traveled with Bilzerian and MMA fighter Jake Shields through France, Romania, and Dubai — the same itinerary Fuentes described as Bilzerian’s “flight.” Hours later, Visegrád 24 published a 23-second video of Bilzerian on the ground in Doha, Qatar, viewed 1.4 million times within hours and corroborating the destination both men had been arguing about.

By May 10, the network around Bilzerian had visibly closed ranks against Fuentes — Shibly, Shields, and Daniel Haqiqatjou’s Muslim Skeptic audience all moving in the same direction within seventy-two hours of Fuentes’ Democrat announcement. That synchronicity is what triggered MaxNordau’s question, and it is the actual story.

The Architect

Haqiqatjou is not a fringe cleric. He is a Harvard physics graduate with a Tufts philosophy master’s whose intellectual lineage, as he himself lists it, runs through Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Ruhollah Khomeini, and Ali Khamenei.

He praised the October 7 massacre as a “religious obligation,” denied the Nova Festival rapes, calls Judaism “as hostile to Christianity and Islam” as any religion on earth, and frames Israel and the Mossad as the hidden hand behind 9/11, ISIS, and Jeffrey Epstein. His audience is not Muslim only: his Haqiqat Show has hosted Bilzerian and hosted Jake Shields — Bilzerian’s Romania-Dubai travel companion alongside Shibly.

The Bridge Thesis — The Islamists and the Far-Right

Haqiqatjou’s strategic argument, repeated across his platform, is that traditional Muslims and traditionalist Western dissidents share one adversary: liberal modernity, feminism, LGBT rights, secular governance, and what he calls “Zionist” influence.

Shibly operationalizes the same argument inside U.S. civil-rights infrastructure, appearing on Russia Today to claim “extremist Jewish Zionist funders and billionaires have bought out the U.S. government” and casting detained British activist Sami Hamdi as a victim of opposing “America First” values. Shields and Bilzerian provide reach: Shields hosts joint streams with Shibly, and Bilzerian’s 30 million Instagram followers carry the message into the masculinity-influencer ecosystem.

Bilzerian Runs for Office

Bilzerian filed in April 2026 to challenge AIPAC-backed Rep. Randy Fine in Florida’s 6th District, calling him “the fat jew Randy Fine.” His campaign treasurer previously ran Kanye West’s presidential committee. Shibly endorsed the bid. The FL-6 race is the network’s first electoral test — and it depends entirely on Republican primary mechanics.

Why the purge of Fuentes

Whatever the merits of Fuentes’ complaints about Iran policy, his vote-Democrat move made him useless to a coalition whose entire vehicle is a Republican primary in Florida. Bilzerian needs GOP voters; Shibly needs an anti-Fine outcome; Haqiqatjou needs the coalition coherent. The “fed” smear is the cover; strategic excommunication is the substance. Fuentes’ assassination allegation against Bilzerian is the counterpunch — credible-enough-to-hurt, unverifiable enough to deny, and conveniently corroborated by the Doha footage and the federal subpoena Bilzerian himself confirms was served on the tarmac.

“America-First” Aligns with the Islamists

The American post-liberal right has long flirted with the idea that “the enemy of my enemy” is a coalition partner. Haqiqatjou has been building exactly that coalition — explicitly, on camera — for years. His intellectual lineage is Brotherhood and Khomeinist; his strategic frame is shared adversary; his tactical tools are influencer reach, civil-rights legalism, and now a congressional candidacy.

The figures involved are not hiding any of it. They are documenting it themselves on YouTube, X, and Instagram, in real time. The question is no longer whether the convergence is real. The question is whether anyone on the American right is willing to see it before FL-6 votes.