Global Muslim Brotherhood Groups, Hamas Praise “Courageous” Taliban Leadership In Afghanistan

In May 2021, the GIOR report­ed that in reac­tion to the vio­lent clash­es between Pales­tini­ans and the Israeli police on Jerusalem’s Tem­ple Mount and the armed con­flict between mil­i­tant Pales­tin­ian groups and Israel, Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood groups had issued state­ments call­ing on Euro­pean insti­tu­tions and the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to con­demn Israeli actions and to inter­cede on behalf of Pales­tin­ian cit­i­zens in East Jerusalem. Israeli actions in the con­flict were described in terms such as “ter­ror,” “eth­nic cleans­ing,” and “des­e­cra­tion,” while no con­dem­na­tion or men­tion was made of Hamas rock­et attacks direct­ed at Israeli civil­ians. 

In stark con­trast, while polit­i­cal lead­ers and gov­ern­ments around the world have round­ly con­demned the Taliban’s swift takeover of Afghanistan fol­low­ing the pull-out of Amer­i­can troops, sev­er­al orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als tied to the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and Pales­tin­ian ter­ror­ist groups have issued com­mu­niqués con­grat­u­lat­ing the Tal­iban on their vic­to­ry and prais­ing their “coura­geous lead­er­ship.” Men­tions of the Taliban’s human rights record and past vio­lence towards women were left out entire­ly. Accord­ing to a Face­book post by the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars (IUMS):

August 16, 2021 Over­all, the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars [IUMS] is upbeat and relieved by the recent changes in the last days and weeks in Afghanistan […], espe­cial­ly in the last two days in Kab­ul. The [IUMS] is upbeat and opti­mistic and con­grat­u­lates the Afghan peo­ple as well as their lead­er­ship, espe­cial­ly in the Tal­iban, on these steps and on this new phase that has start­ed [to] now form in Afghanistan. [Google trans­lat­ed from Arabic.]

Read the rest here.

IUMS also called the takeover from Amer­i­can and Euro­pean forces an “Afghan achieve­ment thanks to jihad, patience, and sac­ri­fices.” The IUMS is an inter­na­tion­al body of Mus­lim the­olo­gians based in Doha, Qatar, whose lead­er­ship is close­ly tied to the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB). Until recent­ly, it was led by GMB spir­i­tu­al guide Youssef Qaradawi. Sev­er­al promi­nent Euro­pean Mus­lim faith lead­ers tied to the GMB were IUMS mem­bers and/or have served as IUMS Trus­tees. In May 2021, the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed that a lead­ing IUMS schol­ar had advo­cat­ed the killing of all Jews liv­ing in Palestine.

On 17 August 2021, the Jor­dan­ian Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Par­ty Islam­ic Action Front (IAF) issued a sim­i­lar­ly word­ed state­ment:

The Islam­ic Action Front par­ty extends its deep­est con­grat­u­la­tions and bless­ings to the broth­er­ly Afghan peo­ple on the defeat of the bru­tal Amer­i­can occu­pa­tion of the entire Afghan lands at the hands of the Mujahideen from the Tal­iban move­ment and the entire Afghan peo­ple. [Google trans­lat­ed from Arabic.]

Arab media is report­ing on yet anoth­er sim­i­lar state­ment pub­lished by the Sudanese Pop­u­lar Con­gress Par­ty, found­ed by ear­ly Sudanese MB leader Has­san Al-Tura­bi, and which since 2016 has been head­ed by Ibrahim El Sanousi, anoth­er leader in the country’s Mus­lim Brotherhood.

On 15 August 2021, Hamas, the Pales­tin­ian Islamist move­ment in con­trol of the Gaza Strip, con­grat­u­lat­ed the Tal­iban for their “vic­to­ry” in return­ing to pow­er in Afghanistan. Accord­ing to an Israeli news­pa­per report­ing on the press release:August 16, 2021 The Hamas ter­ror group praised the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan on Mon­day, call­ing it “a vic­to­ry that came as the cul­mi­na­tion of more than 20 years of strug­gle.” In a state­ment, the ter­ror group said it “con­grat­u­lates the Afghani Mus­lim nation for the down­fall of the Amer­i­can occu­pa­tion in all Afghani territory.”

Read the rest here.

Hamas-affil­i­at­ed accounts have also dis­sem­i­nat­ed pho­tos from a meet­ing ear­li­er this year between Hamas and Tal­iban lead­er­ship in Doha, Qatar. Dur­ing that meet­ing, the Tal­iban praised Hamas’ vic­to­ry in the May 2021 flare-up of the armed con­flict between mil­i­tant Pales­tin­ian groups and Israel. Accord­ing to Israeli media, the meet­ing took place in the Tal­iban office in Doha, where Haniyeh has been based for the past two years. The Hamas char­ter says that it is “one of the wings of the Mus­lim Broth­ers in Pales­tine,” and a Hamas jour­nal­ist has acknowl­edged the role that the “inter­na­tion­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood” has played in pro­vid­ing funds for the pur­chase of weapons. Hamas is known to be sup­port­ed finan­cial­ly and polit­i­cal­ly by the GMB. Also, on 16 August 2021, the Pales­tin­ian ter­ror­ist group Pales­tin­ian Islam­ic Jihad (PIJ) has pub­lished a sim­i­lar state­ment con­grat­u­lat­ing the Tal­iban on their con­quest and hail­ing the “lib­er­a­tion” of Afghani land.

The Coun­cil on Amer­i­can-Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR), one of the most influ­en­tial Mus­lim orga­ni­za­tions in the US and a part of the GMB, has shied away from prais­ing the prospect of an Afghanistan ruled by Islamist fun­da­men­tal­ists, although seem­ing­ly accept­ing the Taliban’s rapid assump­tion of pow­er. Instead, CAIR focused on high­light­ing the need for human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance, tak­ing in Afghan refugees, and what it calls “Islam’s teach­ings” of fair treat­ment for women: Accord­ing to a press release on the CAIR website:

August 16, 2021 The peo­ple of Afghanistan must now decide the future of that nation on their own, with­out for­eign mil­i­tary inter­fer­ence. We hope and pray that the Afghan peo­ple will soon estab­lish a rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment that reflects Afghanistan’s diver­si­ty and Islam’s teach­ings of jus­tice, mer­cy, human rights, and fair treat­ment for all peo­ple, espe­cial­ly women, who have the God-giv­en right to learn, trav­el, earn a liv­ing and live in dignity.

Read the rest here.

Ear­li­er, CAIR said offi­cials and jour­nal­ists report­ing about the polit­i­cal upheaval in Afghanistan should refrain from using terms like “Islamist” and “jihadist,” dubi­ous­ly describ­ing them as “fic­tion­al terms with no Ara­bic equiv­a­lent” and alleg­ing they were used to mis­con­strue Islam as a polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy. CAIR describes itself as “a grass­roots civ­il rights and advo­ca­cy group” found­ed in 1994 by three offi­cers of the Islam­ic Asso­ci­a­tion of Pales­tine, part of the US Hamas infra­struc­ture at that time.

In a 15 August 2021 tweet, British GMB leader Anas Al-Tikri­ti – while at the same time cel­e­brat­ing west­ern defeat in Afghanistan – also stopped short of prais­ing the Tal­iban move­ment outright:

I cel­e­brate the defeat of any and all forms of occu­pa­tion, wher­ev­er they stand. But to those who are demand­ing that I cel­e­brate the com­ing of #Tal­iban I say; Fight­ing is easy. The hard part is run­ning a coun­try & build­ing a soci­ety on the basis of jus­tice & freedom.

Al-Tikri­ti acts as CEO of the Cor­do­ba Foun­da­tion, a British Mus­lim NGO described by the for­mer UK Prime Min­is­ter David Cameron as a “polit­i­cal front for the Mus­lim Brotherhood.”

In con­trast, on 17 August 2021, British Islam­ic schol­ar Haitham Al-Had­dad pub­lished a Face­book post refer­ring pos­i­tive­ly to a future Tal­iban gov­ern­ment in Afghanistan while call­ing to mind past fail­ures of Islamist rule in the Arab world:

The Taliban’s recent vic­to­ry should not only make us con­tent and hap­py but rather should encour­age us towards work­ing hard to secure and main­tain this vic­to­ry by ensur­ing the upright­ness of vision and gov­er­nance. We have pre­vi­ous­ly rejoiced over sev­er­al vic­to­ries, but they were soon fol­lowed by much pain, sad­ness and great losses.

Read the rest here.

Al-Had­dad, the founder of the Mus­lim Relief and Devel­op­ment Foun­da­tion, rose to promi­nence as a  Salafi extrem­ist preach­er and has been called “one of the most dan­ger­ous men in Britain” by the counter-extrem­ist Quil­liam Foun­da­tion due to his adher­ence to the Salafi move­ment with­in Sun­ni Islam. Report­ing by our pre­de­ces­sor pub­li­ca­tion Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Dai­ly Watch (GMBDW) has not­ed that Al-Had­dad has been a fea­tured speak­er for the Fed­er­a­tion of Stu­dent Islam­ic Soci­eties, an umbrel­la group­ing of most major uni­ver­si­ty Islam­ic soci­eties in the UK with close ties to the GMB.

On 18 August 2021, the head of Germany’s main GMB umbrel­la Deutsche Mus­lim­is­che Gemein­schaft (DMG), pub­lished a tweet play­ing down the Taliban’s vio­la­tions of women’s rights by com­par­ing them to France’s anti-veil­ing laws:

What is the dif­fer­ence between France and the Tal­iban in terms of women and school? [France] says women are only allowed to enter school with­out a head­scarf, [the Tal­iban] say that women are only allowed to enter school with a head­scarf. In prin­ci­ple, it sounds the same. [Trans­lat­ed from Ger­man original.]

Swaid is one of the co-founders of the Ger­man MB youth orga­ni­za­tion Mus­lim­is­che Jugend in Deutsch­land and at one time also head­ed its Euro­pean par­ent Forum of Mus­lim Youth and Stu­dent Orga­ni­za­tions. Swaid acts as the chair­man of the asso­ci­a­tion behind the Ger­man chap­ter of the Insti­tut Européen des Sci­ences Humaines.

For the GIOR posi­tion on the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood as an influ­ence oper­a­tion, go here.