Pentagon Muslim Cleric Hate
State Dept Promotes Muslim Cleric Who Backed Fatwa on ‘Killing of U.S. Soldiers’
BY: Adam Kredo
May 23, 2014
Free Beacon
The State Department’s Counter Terrorism (CT) Bureau promoted on Friday
a controversial Muslim scholar whose organization has reportedly backed
Hamas and endorsed a fatwa authorizing the murder of U.S. soldiers in
Iraq.
The CT bureau on Friday tweeted out a link to the official website of
Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah, the vice president of the International
Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), a controversial organization founded
by a Muslim Brotherhood leader “who has called for the death of Jews
and Americans and himself is banned from visiting the U.S.,” according
to Fox News.
Bin Bayyah is reported to have been one of several clerics who endorsed
a 2004 fatwa that endorsed resistance against Americans fighting in
Iraq, PJ Media reported in 2013, when Bin Bayyah met with Obama’s
National Security Council staff at the White House.
The CT Bureau tweet linked to a press release on Bin Bayyah’s site
condemning the kidnapping of hundreds of Nigerian girls by the Boko
Haram group.
However, Bin Bayyah himself has been known to back controversial causes.
Bin Bayyah has “urged the U.N. to criminalize blasphemy,” according to
reports, and spoke “out in favor of Hamas,” the terror group that rules
over the West Bank.
The cleric also issued a fatwa in 2009 “barring ‘all forms of normalization’ with Israel,” according to Fox.
The 2004 fatwa on Iraq stated that “resisting occupation troops” is a “duty” for all Muslims, according to reports.
Terrorism analyst Patrick Poole said that the State Department must more carefully choose the Muslim leaders it promotes.
“This administration is continuing to push extremist clerics like Bin
Bayyah as part of a fantasy foreign policy that somehow they are
somehow a counter to al Qaeda,” Poole said. “But in Bin Bayyah’s case,
it was his organization that issued the fatwa allowing for the killing
of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and said it was a duty for Muslims all over
the world to support the Iraqi ‘resistance’ against the United States
that gave religious justification for al Qaeda’s terrorism.
“And [Bin Bayyah] said nothing as his pal Qaradawi issued fatwas
authorizing the use of suicide bombings and publicly defended terrorist
groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” Poole
added. “If anything, clerics like Bin Bayyah and [Yusuf] Qaradawi have
actively aided al Qaeda.”
The Obama administration came under fire in June 2013 for holding a meeting with Bin Bayyah at the White House.
The cleric was confirmed to have met with members of Obama’s National
Security Council at the White House to discuss poverty and global
health efforts, according to multiple reports at the time.
Yusuf Qaradawi, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader who founded the
IUMS—where Bin Bayyah served as vice president—has been called a
“theologian of terror” by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Bin Bayyah himself has advocated for the criminalization of “the
denigration of religious symbols,” which critics call an infringement
on free speech.
A State Department spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on the issue.
Muslim cleric invited to pray over fallen SEALs damns them during service
By Jessica Chasmar
The Washington Times
Thursday, May 9, 2013
The families of Navy SEALs killed in an August 2011 shoot-down of a
helicopter in Afghanistan spoke at a press conference Thursday morning,
citing a number of grievances, including an allegation that the
Pentagon invited a Muslim cleric who “disparaged in Arabic the memory
of these servicemen.”
In addition to blasting the Obama administration for the mission and
for an official investigation they deemed a cover-up, the families
complained that “military brass, while prohibiting any mention of a
Judeo-Christian God, invited a Muslim cleric to the funeral for the
fallen Navy SEAL Team VI heroes who disparaged in Arabic the memory of
these servicemen by damning them as infidels to Allah.”
During the news conference, attorney Larry Klayman who is representing
the grieving parents showed a video with audio of the prayer and a
translation that scrolled over the screen.