UK Muslim Brotherhood, Cross/Double-Cross

Posted on March 2, 2016March 2, 2016 by Denise Simon

Double Games Of The UK Muslim Brotherhood

IP: Last December, the British government published a summary of the findings of a classified Review of the Brotherhood both in Britain and abroad. The Review was ordered by Prime Minister David Cameron and was conducted by two of Britain’s most expert civil servants in the Arab world and Islamist ideology. They concluded that the Brotherhood was secretive, that its claim to have officially disowned violence was not credible and that aspects of its ideology and tactics both in the UK and abroad were “contrary to our values and have been contrary to our national interests and our national security.” UK Brotherhood associates identified in the Review have responded angrily, denying they are “in any way linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.” British journalist John Ware examines their response in the latest edition of the British magazine Standpoint which describes as its core mission the “celebration of western civilisation.”

John Ware is a British journalist who was a senior correspondent for the BBC’s flagship investigative current affairs programme, Panorama, from 1986 to 2012. He has written extensively about the origins, growth and influence of the Muslim Brotherhood network in the UK which he says closely parallels its American counterpart.

Anas Altikriti (right) with Jeremy Corbyn at an anti-war event in 2003: Altikriti has said that Iraqis had the right to expel the “occupation” (©Sean Dempsey/PA Archive/Press Association Images)

The tone was plaintive, almost bewildered. “We work tirelessly for the good of British society on several fronts,” Anas Altikriti protested before calling a press conference to refute the government’s charge that he and other like-minded Muslim leaders are doing the opposite.

A classified government review by two of Britain’s leading civil servants, expert in the Arab world and Islamist ideology, has concluded that organisations like the one Altikriti heads are, in effect, fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood — a charge they categorically deny.

The Ikhwan al-Muslimeen, as it is known in Arabic, was established in 1928 in Egypt and its goal was — and remains — the step-by-step Islamisation of Muslim communities with the ultimate aim of creating a global Caliphate ruled by holy law. “Allah is our objective” is the Brotherhood’s motto, “The Prophet is our leader. The Koran is our constitution. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”

With Altikriti on the platform was Omer El-Hamdoon, president of the Muslim Association of Britain, and Mohammed Kozbar, chairman of the Finsbury Park Mosque, North London, where the press conference was held. “We are not enemies of the state,” said the gently-spoken Hamdoon. All three say they “totally reject the allegation” that they are “in any way linked to the Muslim Brotherhood”.

Altikriti, in particular, has emphasised that he has “absolutely no links” and on its face his denial would seem to be consistent with the values of “tolerance” and “positive co-existence” which he says he is devoted to promoting. It’s certainly a vision a world away from the Brotherhood’s founder, Hassan al-Banna, who sought the moral purification of Muslims, because he regarded them as having been infected by Western decadence. That and his belief that Jews were a major source of the infection help explain why he was an admirer of Hitler and why he translated Mein Kampf into Arabic, calling it My Jihad.

Al-Banna’s legacy has bequeathed a virulent strain of anti-Semitism, homophobia, and disdain for the West and its pluralist values within the Brotherhood that survives to the present day. But no hint of that is to be found in the estimable “Vision” and “Values” section of Altikriti’s think-tank, the Cordoba Foundation, which he established so that Muslims and non-Muslims can “strive” to “understand each other.”

The Cordoba Foundation says it promotes “intercultural dialogue and positive coexistence among civilisations”; it puts a premium on “compassion, peace, justice” and is a “strong voice of tolerance and reason”. It asserts that its “independent” research is underpinned by “sound” academic authorities. What could be more in tune with those British values which the Prime Minister has done so much to promote over the last year as part of his counter-extremism strategy?

Nothing, according to Mohammed Kozbar, sitting alongside Altikriti. With the help of the Metropolitan Police, the Finsbury Park mosque was “liberated” in 2005 by Kozbar and his fellow trustees from the hook-handed demagogue Abu Hamza, now serving life in an American jail. Today, says Kozbar, the mosque serves as a “role model to other mosques and community centres”. In fact, he says, his mosque, together with the Muslim Association of Britain and “similar Muslim organisations”, could “teach” David Cameron “a thing or two about British values”.

Really? It is true the Finsbury Park mosque does good by offering hot meals to the homeless. But since its “liberation” it might also benefit from a few lessons in British values. It has hosted speakers who are on the record as having said they were inspired by the books of Hassan al-Banna and by the Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, who in 2009 thanked Hitler for having “managed to put Jews in their place”. Another speaker hosted by the mosque has described Jews as having “no conscience” and “having all the bad qualities: lies, jealousy, treachery, cowardice, aggression”; another has argued that apostates from Islam must be killed; and yet another has said, “We don’t need to go to the Christians, or the Jews, debating with them about the filth which they believe.”

You only have to imagine what — rightly — would be the reaction had Cameron ever shared a platform with people who spoke of Muslims in such a venomous way.

The mosque’s trustees are also happy to be photographed with Hamas leaders in Gaza. Indeed, one of the trustees is himself a fugitive Hamas commander. Like some other Muslim Brothers, he appears to use London as a base from which to travel to the Middle East to promote the movement — even though Hamas’s military wing has been designated a terrorist organisation here and elsewhere because it has deliberately targeted unarmed civilians. Hamas is, of course, the Palestinian branch of the Brotherhood.

The government review of the Muslim Brotherhood was conducted by Sir John Jenkins, until recently ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and Charles Farr, a former MI6 officer and Director General of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism in the Home Office. He now chairs the Joint Intelligence Committee. Jenkins examined the development, ideology and structures of the Muslim Brotherhood around the world, from when it was established to the present day. Farr investigated the Brotherhood’s network in the UK.

The Brotherhood is now banned in Egypt, the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and in commissioning his review, Cameron has been accused by Altikriti, Kozbar and el-Hamdoon of bowing to those states under threat of losing defence contracts. In truth, the Prime Minister had become increasingly concerned that the Brotherhood’s network here, whilst not engaging in violent extremism, was helping to create the conditions that allowed it to flourish.

Altikriti and his colleagues say the opposite is true and that Jenkins and Farr’s work is “filled with mistakes”. Is it? What about their categorical denial that they are not linked “in any way” to the Brotherhood?

The published summary of the classified review finds that much about the Brotherhood’s UK network of associates and affiliates “remains secretive, including membership, fundraising and educational programmes”. Perhaps that is why Jenkins and Farr are careful to refer to “organisations associated (my emphasis) with the Muslim Brotherhood”.

Judged by this criteria the associations are numerous. The Egyptian Brotherhood has morphed into a global movement of like-minded organisations, often interconnected. Hence Mohammed Kozbar’s Finsbury Park Mosque is identified by a Muslim directory as being “Salafai Ikhwan” (Brotherhood) and he is also a vice-president of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB). Altikriti was MAB president (2003-04), and he and Mohammed Kozbar were directors (2000-2007).

MAB was established in 1997, its founding president having previously been the Brotherhood’s official spokesman in the West. In September 2002, MAB published a paper called “Inspire” which explained how MAB had indeed been Brotherhood-inspired. Virtually all of the modern influences quoted were Muslim Brotherhood leaders and ideologues. In 2002, MAB paid its condolences on the death of the “General Guide to Muslim Brotherhood”, Mustafa Mashoor, and did so again in 2004 on the death of his successor, Mamun al-Hudaybi.

An archived link from MAB’s 2004 website identified some of the “links” that Altikriti today insists do not exist. MAB said then that “amongst its members are those who back in their original countries were members of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

In 2005, Altikriti himself told me: “My family is Muslim Brotherhood.” His family are from Iraq and his father, a consultant radiologist, was head of the Muslim Brotherhood there. “When I was in the Arab Emirates, I was extremely closely linked with the Muslim Brotherhood,” he explained. “I used to go to some of their (study) circles.” At a conference in Doha in 2010, Altikriti was listed as representing the Islamic party in Iraq which he himself has described as a Muslim Brotherhood “offshoot”.

I count at least 30 Islamic organisations in Britain that are closely associated with the Brotherhood. Broadly, they seek to popularise a more “ideologised” version of Islam (as the theologian Malise Ruthven puts it) by monopolising political representation of Muslims in Britain. They want the government to adopt a more Islamist-friendly foreign policy, and of course to expand politicised sacred space. Even though Brotherhood-associated organisations actually control only a handful of mosques, their political activism has exerted an influence over Muslims disproportionate to their size.

Here, for example, is “Jemal”, MAB’s delegate to a Stop the War Coalition conference, who told the British Communist Party journal Weekly Worker in 2003 that many Muslim organisations here had been “set up under the influence of the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood . . . we have gone from strength to strength.” A decade later, Altikriti was asked in an interview published by his own Cordoba Foundation to identify the “most important Muslim Brotherhood institutions that had an influence on the Muslim community in Britain”.

Altikriti responded by naming ten organisations, including six mentioned in the government review — another “mistake” by Messrs. Jenkins and Farr: UK Islamic Mission (UKIM); Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS); Islamic Society of Britain (ISB); Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE); Muslim Association of Britain (MAB); and Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). As the review says, the ISB has been inching away from its Brotherhood birthright and seems to be focused on promoting an identity that’s closer to the mainstream. Its activist erstwhile brothers meanwhile claim it is they who represent “normative” Islam. If they are right, we’re in trouble.

Take UKIM which runs some 50 mosques. Jenkins and Farr say UKIM “still explicitly argues that it is not possible for an observant Muslim to live under a non-Islamic system of government whilst also anticipating the forthcoming ‘victory’ of Islam over Communism, capitalist democracy and secular materialism”. UKIM was established by supporters of the Brotherhood’s south-east Asia counterpart, the Pakistani Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, whose members sheltered some notable al-Qaeda terrorists, including the 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. UKIM insists it has “strongly condemned all forms of extremism” but it is clear, if only in terms of UKIM’s worldview, that its definition of “extreme” cannot be reconciled with mainstream Britain’s.

What about the influence of the Islamic Forum for Europe (IFE)? It dominates the East London Mosque in Tower Hamlets. Like the Finsbury Park Mosque, its volunteers do good community work offering advice on marriages, families, women’s services, pro-bono legal support, and ex-offender support, though why such services for Muslims have to be provided by Muslims is unclear if, as the mosque says, promoting community cohesion is its “mission”. Under the IFE’s influence, the mosque has also transformed large parts of the East End into communities that are so conservative in lifestyle and attire that they have effectively segregated themselves from any meaningful social interaction with the mainstream. IFE members have privately advocated sharia law and it was also the IFE which propelled Britain’s first directly-elected Asian mayor, Lutfur Rahman, into power in Tower Hamlets, only for one court to find that he was corrupt, a liar, a politician who played the race and religious card, and an election cheat and now for another court to find he has been a long-standing tax cheat. Yet Altikriti is on record as having said that since its arrival in the UK the Brotherhood has cultivated a “comparatively progressive narrative” here, and is “amongst the most progressive . . . religious- based movements in general”.

Again, the government review finds otherwise, concluding that MAB — and other Brotherhood associated organisations — have yet to “clearly and publicly promote a vision of Muslims living in this country as integrated British citizens”.

What is stopping this vision from materialising? The review found the Brotherhood was more focused on trying to Islamise individuals and the Muslim community than the state. Yet that was also Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna’s strategy as he sought to change Islam, the faith, into a political ideology by Islamising individuals as a first step towards creating Islamised communities with the ultimate political goal of building a caliphate with laws, customs and lifestyles organised entirely around Islam.

However fantastical this might seem, many observant Muslims dream that one day, albeit in the far-distant future, not just Britain, but the entire world will became a caliphate. Altikriti is no exception, as he explained to me in 2005:

JW: You have this firm conviction that one day there . . . will be an Islamic state here in Britain?
AA: The Prophecy of the Prophet Muhammad is quite clear of that: and that is that the world will embrace Islam . . .
JW: How will this happen?
AA: I have no idea.
JW: I don’t mean this pejoratively but is this something you are working for?
AA: No, I would be absolutely lying if I said, “Yes, in my daily activities and when I work for MAB [Muslim Association of Britain] . . . I had in mind that I’m trying to bring forth the conversion of Europe to Islam,” I would be lying if I said so. But at the same time I would also lying if I said I’m not convinced in my heart of hearts that it will happen . . . I know for a fact that this will happen in spite of me whether I work for it or not.

So if Altikriti is not working towards this global transformation, what exactly is he doing? “The only obligation that I have is what I call Da’wah,” he explained, which is the Arabic term for proselytising, or inviting people to Islam. And, according to the scholar often referred to as the Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, Da’wah is what will lead to Islam coming “back to Europe for the third time, after it was expelled from it twice . . . Conquest through Da’wah that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wah.” It’s a point the Sheikh has made many times.

One thing seems clear: whether the Brotherhood is actively seeking to lay the groundwork for a caliphate, the amount of politicised sacred space has expanded rapidly here in Britain as in much of the world since the Egyptian Brotherhood’s influence has gone global. It is why this “ideologised” version of Islam is someties referred to as history’s latest big idea since the fall of Communism and fascism. So where does the Brotherhood stand on violence?

The Egyptian Brotherhood told Sir John Jenkins it had “consistently adhered to peaceful means of opposition, renouncing all forms of violence throughout its existence.” Again, he finds otherwise. While engaging politically where possible, Sir John says the Brotherhood has “also selectively used violence and sometimes terror in pursuit of their institutional goals”. Brotherhood-linked media platforms “seem to have deliberately incited violence” after the ousting in 2013 by a military coup of the Brotherhood’s first Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi because he failed to deliver his commitment to democracy, notwithstanding Altikriti’s claim that the Brotherhood is the world’s “most important Islamic democratic force”. The review also found that the Brotherhood has “deliberately, wittingly and openly incubated and sustained” Hamas, the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch.

Altikriti, his two colleagues on the press platform and other Brotherhood-associated organisations have roundly condemned terrorist attacks on the UK and terrorism by al-Qaeda and so called Islamic State abroad.

But some of Altikriti’s associates here have also openly applauded attacks by Hamas against unarmed Israeli civilians, including suicide bombings. Nor has Altikriti publicly disowned Hamas, which he does not regard as a terrorist organisation anyway, although he has said he does not consider Israeli civilians to be legitimate targets.

However, when interviewed by the BBC in 2014, Altikriti denied that the Brotherhood’s spiritual leader Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi supported suicide bombing, insisting he knew of no evidence that Qaradawi did, even though the cleric has been very widely publicised as saying he considers them to be “heroic acts. We should hail those who carry out these acts and bless them and call on God to take them to live in Paradise.” Altikriti’s claim to have been ignorant of Qaradawi’s blessing is especially bewildering because it was his organisation, MAB, in 2004 — the year he was also MAB president — that invited Qaradawi to London amid a storm of protest in the newspapers and on the BBC about this very issue. Moreover, Altikriti was photographed sitting next to Qaradawi at a reception at City Hall, London, hosted by the then mayor, Ken Livingstone. Usama Hasan, now senior researcher at the Quilliam Foundation, says he was present at the reception and heard Qaradawi asked about women and children as targets. According to Hasan, Qaradawi replied in Arabic that there was no such thing as civilian targets in Israel because “Israeli women are not like our women. They are living in a militarised society.” Altikriti is fluent in Arabic.

What about Altikriti’s approach to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars? He is an Iraqi-born British citizen, having been given sanctuary here when he was just two, after his father fled from Ba’athist persecution in Iraq.

Some 630 of Altikriti’s fellow citizens — British soldiers — have fought and died in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002. Like many Muslims and non-Muslims he was opposed to both wars. He said he preferred political rather than violent “resistance” because he didn’t want to see “any spillage of blood — coalition forces or the Iraqis”. Yet he also affirmed the right of Iraqis to use “any means and methods” to expel the “occupation”. Those, like him, who were opposed to the invasion had “made a decision to fight for what is true and pure”.(That word “pure” again.) Is it really so difficult for Altikriti and the thousands of other Brotherhood followers in this country to understand that it is one thing to see the invasion through the eyes of Iraqis resisting it, but quite another to publicly support them when the lives of your fellow citizens are at stake — especially when those fellow citizens belong to a country that protected your family from Iraqi oppression in the first place?

To convince sceptics that the Brotherhood alligned movement here is “working tirelessly for the good of British society on several fronts” Anas Altikriti and Kozbar will need to reconcile their admirable rhetoric — how they strive for positive coexistence, tolerance, peace, compassion and justice, etc — with the words and actions of the organisation they led between 2000 and 2007: the Muslim Association of Britain. While condemning al-Qaeda attacks like 9/11 and 7/7, some of MAB’s actions and rhetoric directed at the Israel-Palestine conflict were particularly inflammatory and contributed to keeping young British Muslims angry.

On April 13, 2002, MAB organised a pro-Palestinian rally in London. The MAB email advertising this rally was headlined “Muslim Brotherhood launch biggest Palestine rally in the UK”, clearly indicating the MAB/Muslim Brotherhood connection that Altikriti has denied. At the rally itself, demonstrators dressed as suicide bombers and carried placards, downloaded from the MAB website, equating Israel with Nazi Germany.

In 2003, a MAB spokesman, Azzam Tamimi (whom Altikriti told me was almost certainly a Muslim Brother), wrote an article titled “Anti-Semitism or Just Jews Behaving Badly?” So carried away was Tamimi by his accusations of racism against Israelis, that his own language descended into racism, going well beyond legitimate criticism of Israel and its policies.

Israeli Jews were described as “invaders” that came from afar “out of greed . . . justifying their aggression by . . . claiming themselves to be the chosen people of God who are given a divine licence to dehumanise, kill and rob and [sic] entire nation of a decent living”.

The article concluded: “Few humans may accept the racist claim of other humans of being God’s chosen ones who may kill others because they are less divine . . . Until when will the world be able to put up with their arrogance and aggression? If they want to be as human as anybody else, Jews must wake up before it is too late.”

No doubt Tamimi would say that his hostility to Israelis was not because they are Jews. The same defence was made by the Brotherhood’s ex-President of Egypt Mohamed Morsi in 2013 to six American senators who questioned him about a ranting speech in which he urged Egyptians to “nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred” for Jews and Zionists. In a later interview Morsi described Zionists as “these bloodsuckers who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs”. While confining his comments to “Zionists” and never explicitly mentioning Jews, his tirade nonetheless invoked an anti-Semitic theme common in the Middle East about malevolent Jews exercising demonic power: “They have been fanning the flames of civil strife wherever they were throughout their history. They are hostile by nature.”

As the government review found, senior members of the Brotherhood “routinely use virulent, anti-Semitic language”, which is a core motivator of violent extremism. And the truth is their language goes well beyond Israel. The view that Jews are intrinsically evil was developed in prose reminiscent of the Nazis by a Muslim Brother revered on MAB’s website as the “doyen” of the Brotherhood, Sayyid Qutb. Echoing al-Banna, Qutb extolled the Islamic virtue of extreme purity defiled by Jewish “filth” just a few years after the Holocaust. In an essay entitled “Our Struggle With the Jews” he wrote:

Free the sensual desires from their restraints and they destroy the moral foundation on which the pure Creed rests, in order that the Creed should fall into the filth which they spread so widely on the earth. They mutilate the whole of history and falsify it. . . . From such creatures who kill, massacre and defame prophets one can only expect the spilling of human blood and dirty means which would further their machinations and evil.

MAB’s attempt to mitigate Qutb’s diatribe because he wrote it during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence with the Arabs doesn’t wash. He said Islam’s struggle with Jews had raged for 1400 years and described them as “ungrateful” by nature, “narrowly selfish” and “fanatical”. Their disposition prevented them from feeling “the larger human connection which binds humanity together”.

This is just a flavour of Qutb’s mendacity. Yet it was under Altikriti’s presidency of MAB with Kozbar serving as MAB director that Qutb was lionised on MAB’s website as the “doyen” of the Muslim Brotherhood. I don’t suggest Qutb reflects either man’s views of Jews for I know of no Qutb-like reference by them to Jews. But when a journalist challenged MAB in 2004 about its reverence for Qutb, the best MAB could do was to suggest that his “Zionist ex Mossad friends” had misled him.

In the 2013 interview Altikriti granted to his own Cordoba Foundation, he was asked if he thought “the Muslim Brotherhood, since its arrival in the UK . . . had an intellectual effect on the Muslim community in Britain?” He replied: “Undoubtedly so.” He is right — but not in the virtuous way he intended. Brotherhood ideology has also been the intellectual inspiration behind those violent Islamist groups that have appealed to thousands of British Muslims. No one more so than Sayyid Qutb.

Qutb drew on the thoughts of another MAB website poster boy, the Indian Islamist theologian Abul Ala’a Mawdudi, who founded Jamaat-e-Islami, to promote the doctrine of takfirism. This is the practice used by extremists to stigmatise other Muslims as “impure” infidels or apostates, and of Muslim states as “unislamic.” Takfir is the war cry of groups like al-Qaeda and Islamic State to murder other Muslims in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the most bestial ways imaginable in pursuit of the perfect Islamic society. Like these groups, Qutb was viscerally anti-Western, with a psychotic loathing of its “decadent” and materialistic ways (triggered by sights like Americans dancing cheek-to-cheek and their neatly mown lawns),

Qutb is now widely recognised as the father of modern jihadism because he decided it was going to take more than just Da’wah (preaching) to establish the kingdom of God on earth. He argued that a revolutionary vanguard should establish an Islamic state and then impose Islamisation, first on Arabs, then the rest. Ring any bells? It’s why Islamic State today quotes Sayyid Qutb so heavily in its public discourse.

When I listen to the current MAB president Omer El-Hamdoon — who is also an imam — castigating with such passion and conviction the “ignorance” and “arrogance” and “warped mentality” of the “savages” of Islamic State, I wonder if he links it back to the Brotherhood’s ideologue whom his organisation so publicly admired just a few years ago. It’s a fair question because, beyond MAB’s muted qualifier that some scholars disagreed with Qutb “on a number of issues”, British-based Brotherhood organisations and associates have not openly or consistently refuted the poison he wrote. But then according to Altikriti, there is no need. “If anything,” he says “the Muslim Brotherhood and their ideas has (sic) constantly, constantly, without fail, been the very antithesis of the ideology of the likes of al-Qaeda.”

Yet Qutb was held up by MAB as a supremely moral being for having “opened his eyes to the malaise of the Western culture and non-Islamic ideologies”. He made a “clear distinction between pure faith and association of partners (shirk)” which bluntly means venerating anything other than God.

At its most extreme, this obsession with purifying the Islamic faith is what also drives Islamic State to kill everything it deems to be impure and is why the mere mention of purity by Islamists sends a Nuremberg-like shudder down my spine, though not, apparently, the spines of many on the Left nor even some conservatives. The commentator Peter Oborne considers the Brotherhood to be “a great political movement — not just in Egypt”. He says he has “seen no evidence of any kind of Muslim Brotherhood terrorism . . . I’ve looked into it.” But then so have two of Britain’s most senior and expert civil servants with access to Muslim Brother leaders, British embassies around the world, and intelligence from MI5 and MI6 that presumably Oborne did not have. Given violent jihadism’s inheritance from Brotherhood ideology, there is nothing “phobic” about this apprehension. It is rational.

Anas Altikriti and his Cordoba Foundation can talk all the grandiloquent talk they like about “believing” in a “world full of hope” where “opposing ideas are working together, enriching our understanding of each other; strengthening our humanity without seeing its end in a grand clash”.

But until they can reconcile the resounding clash between their enlightened rhetoric and their blind eye to the Brotherhood’s regressive ways, sceptics will continue to question whether the change is real or tactical. Clearly Jenkins and Farr have yet to be convinced. Brotherhood literature here, they say, still casts “Western society” as “inherently hostile to Muslim faith and interests and that Muslims must respond by maintaining their distance and autonomy”.

British society is not inherently “hostile” to Muslims nor ever has been. More than three million Muslims have made their home here and their numbers are growing rapidly. British Muslims are a fact of life. Non-Muslims are crying out for their fellow Muslim citizens to close that distance by articulating a set of values around which a meaningful common life can be built. Until then, the Brotherhood’s British network that claims to speak for “normative” Islam will continue, as the review says, to be regarded as operating “contrary to our national interests and our national security.”

Innocent Letter Proves ISIS Aid for Hamas?

Posted on March 2, 2016March 2, 2016 by Denise Simon

Exclusive: Letter By ISIS Fighter To Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi Reveals ISIS-Sinai’s Ties To Hamas

The following report is a complimentary offering from MEMRI’s Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.

MEMRI: On February 24, 2016, a letter from an Islamic State (ISIS) fighter to ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was posted on social media. In it, the fighter strongly protests the close ties and cooperation between ISIS’s Sinai province and Hamas, particularly Hamas’s military wing.

This letter is the first confirmation of ties between the two organizations that comes from ISIS itself, and a unique firsthand account of the nature of these ties. It appears that the document was not meant for circulation outside ISIS, and to have been leaked by Al-Qaeda supporters.[1]

The letter is by ISIS fighter Abu ‘Abdallah Al-Muhajir, who presents himself as a Gazan who joined ISIS in Syria. He writes that he decided to appeal to Al-Baghdadi in order to fulfill his duty as a Muslim to give loyal advice to the leader of the Muslims. His letter is based on his own personal knowledge from his time in Gaza, as well as on information provided to him by other fighters who came to Syria from the Gaza Strip.

With regard to the ties between Hamas and ISIS’s Sinai Province, Abu ‘Abdallah explains the areas in which the groups collaborate: ISIS fighters in Sinai are smuggling weapons into Gaza for Hamas; Hamas is producing weapons and explosive devices for ISIS Sinai; Hamas is providing logistical assistance to ISIS Sinai, including communications systems and hospitalization for its wounded fighters in Gaza; and ISIS Sinai officials are visiting Gaza and dining at the homes of Hamas government and military wing officials.

Abu ‘Abdallah says that he considers these Hamas-ISIS Sinai ties a violation of the principle of loyalty to the Muslims and rejection of non-Muslims (Al-Walaa Wal-Baraa), stating ISIS considers Hamas a movement that has betrayed Islam and that as such there is no justification, even on the pretext of tactical, operational, and logistical necessity, for maintaining ties with it.

ISIS Sinai province displaying weapons training. Source: Telegram.me/HaiAlaElJehad5, February 6, 2016.

Noting that what motivated him to take the unusual step of writing directly to Al-Baghdadi was the rising rage and frustration among ISIS supporters in Gaza who feel abandoned by the ISIS leadership and by ISIS Sinai, Abu ‘Abdallah expresses harsh criticism of ISIS Sinai for its warm relationship with Hamas. Hamas, he says, is persecuting and torturing ISIS loyalists, and adds that the disconnect between ISIS supporters in Gaza and ISIS Sinai itself is so great that the Gaza jihadis are now questioning the sincerity of ISIS Sinai’s loyalty to ISIS itself and are hesitant to join with it.

Abu ‘Abdallah’s letter caused a stir among ISIS supporters, particularly in Gaza, both because of its content and because such a direct appeal to ISIS leader Al-Baghdadi had been posted online. A group of pro-ISIS media activists in Gaza, Al-Nusra Al-Maqdisiya, which publishes and disseminates pro-ISIS materials on social media. responded to the letter’s publication; however, it denied neither Abu ‘Abdallah’s claims in the letter, nor the details he gave about the Hamas-ISIS Sinai relationship. It was merely enraged because he mentioned the group his the letter.

Following are excerpts from the letter:

Abu ‘Abdallah: If ISIS Sinai Maintains Its Ties With Hamas “We Will All Regret The Disaster That Will Befall Us In Sinai”

Abu ‘Abdallah begins his letter by explaining that what ISIS Sinai is doing in its ties with Hamas is serious and could lead to disaster: “A complaint by a soldier in the [Islamic] State to the Caliph of the Muslims, against the actions of the brothers in Sinai Province. An urgent letter from Abu ‘Abdallah Al-Muhajir to our commander and Caliph of the Muslims Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, may Allah protect him.

“The Prophet said: ‘The religion is sincere advice’… which is why I seek Allah’s aid in writing and disseminating this urgent and highly important letter, which has in it serious matters that must be addressed, and ended, by Sheikh Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and the Islamic State leaders. For by Allah, if these things continue and persist, we will all regret the disaster [that will befall] us in the beloved land of Sinai, which is the most important and powerful [Islamic] State province outside Iraq and Syria.

“This is a letter from your son Abu ‘Abdallah Al-Muhajir, and in it are matters that I have experienced during my presence on Gaza soil, as well as matters about which the brothers [in Gaza] wrote to me after I joined [the fight] in Syria, and matters that I learned from brothers who emigrated to Syria and Iraq before I did. I recoiled from writing [the letter], and consulted with my immigrant brothers, and we agreed to publicize what we know, while the brothers in Gaza advised me to say these things secretly and not write publicly for fear of the response of the brothers in Sinai province. But matters have reached a point where it is no longer possible to remain silent, and providing advice in secret would not have helped. Silence in the face of what is happening would have made us the devils of silence, and silence is betrayal of Allah, His messenger, and the Caliph of the Muslims.

“Oh, Caliph of the Muslims, I wish to speak to you about an issue related to the foundations of the religion and the tenets of the faith – Al-Walaa Wal-Baraa [loyalty to Muslims and rejection of non-Muslims], for which the blood of thousands of Islamic State jihad fighters has been spilled. For the sake of this principle, we are hostile towards the entire world, we are withstanding a war waged against us by the whole world, and even by some who claim to be jihad fighters.

“[But] even after all these great sacrifices, some brothers come along and destroy [the principle of] Al-Walaa Wal-Baraa, on weak pretexts and for reasons unbecoming of any jihad fighter who belongs to this mighty state.

“I speak to you today about the suspect and illegitimate ties between Sinai province and Hamas, which are hidden from no one. What I will write about now is based on two main things:

“1. After a period of being in Syria, I have learned that the Islamic State considers Hamas, with all its branches and wings, to be an apostate movement, and that it treats it as an apostate cult, including [the ‘Izz Al-Din] Al-Qassam [Brigades, Hamas’s military wing]. This is known to all the brothers here in Syria and Iraq.

“2. The second thing is the internal memos coming from the [Islamic] State leadership ruling that many factions in Syria are apostates, including for collaborating with apostates and for transferring weapons to them or maintaining a relationship with them.”

ISIS Sinai province fighters undergoing military training. Source: Telegram.me/HaiAlaElJehad5, February 6, 2016.

“Sinai Province Is Smuggling Weapons For Hamas In Gaza”

Abu ‘Abdallah then explains the ties between ISIS Sinai and Hamas, and tells why he thinks they are a violation of the tenets of loyalty:

“Allow me, Caliph of Muslims, to inform you of some aspects of the suspect ties between Sinai province and Hamas:

“1. Sinai province is smuggling weapons for Hamas in Gaza, because of the province’s fighters’ expert knowledge of the [smuggling] routes from Libya, Sudan, and Egypt.

“2. Sinai province depends very much on Hamas and Al-Qassam for weapons and for explosives and ammunition. There are direct and continuous supply routes from Hamas to Sinai province. The Al-Qassam factories operate assembly lines for manufacturing explosive devices and bombs for the Sinai province, but do not stamp the Al-Qassam logo on them, as they usually do.

“3. Sinai province leaders are regularly visiting the Gaza Strip, and holding cordial meetings with Hamas and Al-Qassam leaders, even [Hamas] government [representatives]. Animals are slaughtered for them, feasts are held, and they are embraced in Gaza.

“4. Hamas and Al-Qassam are accepting all wounded Sinai province [fighters], and they are treated in Gaza Strip hospitals under Al-Qassam’s direct protection.

“5. Hamas is providing wireless communication hubs for Sinai province, because of the difficulty of operating them in Sinai and because they are vulnerable to swift destruction by the Egyptian army.

“[Hypothetically,] if we disregard the religious dimension, and Al-Walaa Wal-Baraa, we would be able to say that Sinai province benefits greatly from these ties, and that the province is being clever and devious in order to attain power and ammo from Hamas, for fighting the infidel [Egyptian President] Al-Sisi. However, in truth, and viewing things on a shari’a level, the province is committing several religious transgressions… among them:

“1. Violating the principle of loyalty to jihad fighters in Gaza and Islamic State supporters [there], and abandoning them and handing them over to their apostate enemy (Hamas)…

“2. Violating the principle of rejecting Hamas, which has replaced the laws of Allah and rules Gaza with laws of unbelief, and of [rejecting] the Al-Qassam Brigades, [which is] this government’s violent aggressive force. I was shocked when I discovered here in Syria that the Islamic State treats the Hamas government and movement, and the Al-Qassam Brigades, as apostates. Where, then, does Sinai province stand on this?

“3. Strengthening the apostates and making it easier for weapons to reach them by smuggling weapons to Hamas via Sinai province land, even using the province’s men and vehicles. One of the brothers told me, by means of his brother who is in the [Gaza] Strip, that Israel bombed one of these convoys, killing province jihad fighters as they were transporting weapons to Hamas.

“4. Maintaining friendly ties with the leadership of Hamas and Al-Qassam, which the [Islamic] State considers apostates. [These ties include] exchanging visits with them, welcoming them, and treating them in a manner displeasing to Allah…

“5. Relying on Hamas and Al-Qassam – which the [Islamic] State consider apostates – for its supply of ammunition and weapons. This is no different than taking weapons from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, or Qatar in order to fight [Syrian President] Bashar Al-Assad, as the apostate factions do here in Syria, or as Hamas does when it takes money from Iran. [This action by Hamas] is a crime for which we have condemned Hamas for decades, and have ruled that it is apostate, for this and other reasons.

“Sinai Province Is A Pawn Of Hamas”

“Oh, Sheikh Abu Bakr, Sinai province thinks its actions are wise and that it is making a laughingstock of Hamas. But what the province leadership does not know, or what it is ignoring, is that Hamas is giving them these weapons so that they will use them against [Egyptian President] Al-Sisi, in an attempt to end his regime and in preparation for restoring the democratic rule of the Muslim Brotherhood.[2] [Sinai province] is a pawn of Hamas, which is being exploited as part of its Ikhwani [Muslim Brotherhood] plan. Were this not the case, Hamas would not have fought against Islamic State supporters in Gaza, and against anything related to the Islamic State.

“Oh sheikh of ours: Hamas is clever and is giving Sinai province everything it wants, so that it [Hamas] can gain a foothold in [Sinai], and so that it will have ‘stock’ in the province, and so that it will be able to protect itself against anything the province might do against it. They [Hamas’ leaders] are clever, oh sheikh – they give table scraps to the province, so that they can divide the men of tawhid [Islamic monotheism – nickname for Salafi-jihadis] and deal with them as they please, since no one supports them. Hamas knows that no one but Sinai province can help the Salafis in Gaza, and has therefore taken possession of it, and has thus kept it away from the crimes being carried out in Gaza against the supporters of the Islamic State.

“Oh, sheikh of ours and Caliph of the Muslims: If anyone tries to describe this situation to you in a way that contradicts this, then [know] that I am a loyal advisor. The relationship between Sinai province and Hamas has crossed all limits, and has reached the point where the province is asking Hamas to manufacture the uniforms for its soldiers. Hamas manufactures the military uniforms for Sinai province – the uniforms we see, and over which we rejoice, in videos are from Hamas, oh our Sheikh Abu Bakr. I swear to the Lord of the Ka’ba that it would have been better for the Sinai province soldiers to wear ragged, torn, and patched uniforms than to ask Hamas to manufacture their uniforms for them.

ISIS military trainer training Sinai province recruits

“In accordance with the close relationship between the sides, we find that for the sake of worldly honor which Hamas gives it, the Sinai province has sold its religion. This is embodied by Sinai province’s disregard of the cruel war that Hamas is waging against the supporters of the Islamic State. Sinai province does not even [dare] threaten, or warn Hamas, over its ongoing abuse of Islamic State supporters…

“The Hearts Of Islamic State Supporters In Gaza Are Filled With Rage And Shock At The Actions Of Sinai Province”

“Back when I visited the brothers in Rafah, they told me that Hamas men call Sinai province ‘the Raed Al-‘Atar Province’ – named after the Al-Qassam Brigades commander who oversaw the weapons and ammo shipments to the province.[3] One of the immigrant brothers [i.e. fighters from Gaza who came to Syria] told me, on behalf of brothers in Gaza, that one senior official in the apostate Hamas internal security [apparatus] would torture and ridicule Salafi jihad fighters, saying, ‘Our relations, in Hamas, with Sinai province are stronger and better than yours with Sinai province.”

“This is true and very real. Hamas and Sinai province are maintaining warm relations and direct lines of communication around the clock.. I know that Sinai province has severed ties with all the Salafi jihad fighters in the Gaza Strip, and is attempting to cut anything connecting it to them, so as not to sour the relations with Hamas and ruin the relationship between them. You must know, oh sheikh of ours, that Sinai province refrains from announcing the deaths of brothers that came to it from Gaza. They only announce their deaths much later, and claim that they were killed in other regions, not Sinai, so as not to embarrass Hamas, which is worried by this possibility.

“You must know that the jihad fighters ‘Abd Al-Rahman Al-Nouri[4] and ‘Arafat Al-Sa’idi[5] were killed in Sinai, but it was announced that they had died in Syria, which is not true. Additionally, one of the immigrant brothers in Sinai who came to Syria informed us of the death of a man named ‘Abd Al-Ilah Qashta, several months ago, but Sinai province has not yet announced his death, nor will it. The announcement of his death will be made by another province, because he was an Al-Qassam commander.[6]

“Some say that there is an agreement that the province will not accept anyone from Al-Qassam into its ranks, and that if one such man is killed, they will not announce his death. A few days ago, the death of Muflih Abu ‘Adhira was announced by [ISIS] Tripoli province [in Libya], even though he died in Sinai.[7]

All those mentioned above are jihad fighters from Gaza who immigrated to Sinai.

Poster of Muflih Abu ‘Adhira released by ISIS’s Tripoli province

“One of the brothers who recently came from Gaza to Syria said that the hearts of Islamic State supporters in Gaza are filled with rage and shock at the actions of Sinai province. For example, how can they accept that one of the province leaders is in the lap of Hamas luxury in Gaza, doing as he pleases and travelling to the homes of Hamas and Al-Qassam leaders, and enjoying their food at lavish banquets, while a few hundred meters away, Islamic State supporters are tortured in Hamas prisons, and their faces spat in, and are humiliated in in the worst way because of their loyalty and support for the Islamic State – of which Sinai is one of its most important provinces.

“I should mention here that Sinai province appointed a cleric to solve the problem of Salafi groups in the Gaza Strip. We were surprised when the cleric came to us and announced that the judge appointed by Sinai province had dismantled our organization, Majlis Shura Al-Mujahideen, which was the largest Salafi organization in the Gaza Strip.[8] He said to everyone: ‘Do not establish organizations [separately from the Islamic State] – go swear fealty to Sinai province.’ Some time later I asked the brothers [i.e. other Salafis in the Gaza Strip] what had happened [i.e., did the Sinai province accept their oath of fealty and bring them into its ranks]. They told me that the province was not responding to them. That is how things stayed until the end of my time in Gaza. There is no strength or ability other than Allah’s! Is this [a path that befits] the religion, oh our Sheikh Abu Bakr? [How can] the province dismantle the jihad groups who were operating for the sake of Allah’s religion [in Gaza] and then prevent them from joining it? …”

“One Last Thing For Sheikh Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi: Do Not Forget The Supporters Of The Islamic State In Gaza”

“One last thing for Sheikh Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi: Do not forget the supporters of the Islamic State in Gaza. Do not forget them, oh sheikh, for they were the first to support the [Islamic] state. They established [the pro-ISIS media activist group] Al-Nusra Al-Maqdisiya at a time when it was difficult to support the [Islamic] State, and it was under onslaught from all sides. The brothers we left behind in Gaza are a responsibility placed in your hands, oh Sheikh Abu Bakr; they are orphans at the tables of misers. Other than Allah, they have no supporters but the Islamic State.

“How can it be that while all [other ISIS] provinces conduct media campaigns [and release] videos to call jihad fighters in the Islamic Maghreb [North Africa], Somalia, Afghanistan, and Yemen to swear fealty to the Islamic State,[9] the letters, cries, and calls for help by the men of tawhid in Gaza are ignored?[10] Oh Sheikh Abu Bakr, you are the Caliph of [all] the Muslims, both the weak and the strong – so how can there be such discrimination among Muslims? [How is it] that the strong are addressed and called on to swear fealty [to ISIS], while the oath of fealty by the oppressed [Salafi-jihadis in Gaza] is rejected?

“Oh sheikh, the Islamic State supporters in Gaza are not organized. They have no plan; they have no lack purpose, unity, or coordination. This is all because the Islamic State ignores them, and Sinai province abandoned them, and will not even contact with them. At the same time, even Al-Qaeda supporters have organized their ranks and launched military preparations, by Allah! …

“Why do the Islamic State leaders here in Syria not notice that Salafi jihad fighters travel from Gaza to Syria and Iraq instead of going to Sinai province? [One] reason is that the province refuses as a matter of principle to accept them; only someone who crosses the border [from Gaza] and arrives without the knowledge of Sinai province and then forces himself on them can join it. The second reason is that many of the Islamic State’s supporters in Gaza are unconvinced [of the benefit] of immigrating to Sinai province, and are unconvinced that it is a province that truly belongs to the Islamic State. This is because of the relationship that everyone can see exists between the province and Hamas, and [the province’s] renunciation of the supporters of the [Islamic] State in Gaza. It has gotten to the point where many question Sinai province’s [loyalty] to the [ISIS] path and the sincerity of its affiliation to the caliphate state.

“This [letter] was an expression of some of what we have kept secret for years, when we were in Gaza and since then, when Allah allowed us to immigrate to the beloved Syria. We disregarded many of the deeds of the brothers in Sinai province. But enough is enough, and the time has come to expose and to disclose [what we know].

“Allah help you, our beloved sheikh, caliph of us and of all the Muslims, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. We pray to Allah for an end to what is happening [i.e. that the Hamas-Sinai province ties will be terminated], for our brothers in the Gaza Strip to be rescued from their situation, and for our caliphate and our state to receive support with regard to the actions of the brothers in Sinai [i.e. that ISIS will be spared the bad consequences that are bound to occur due to the Sinai province’s ties with Hamas]…”

Pro-ISIS Media Group Al-Nusra Al-Maqdisiya: Letter Of Complaint Based On Rumors

The members of the pro-ISIS media group Al-Nusra Al-Maqdisiya, which Abu ‘Abdallah had mentioned in his letter, published a furious response to the letter, claiming that he was stirring things up based on unsubstantiated rumors. However, it denied none of his claims, not even those related to the Hamas-Sinai province relationship. It was merely outraged that he had mentioned it.

In its response, the group stated:[11]

“Any Islamic State soldier should address any complaint to the relevant bodies and committees, without resorting to the internet!”
“The Caliph does not accept letters and complaints from his soldiers via the Internet!”
“We have no connection, large or small, to this matter…”
“The letter expresses a situation of destructive emptiness that afflicts some of the grey men [Al-Ramadiyyun] who envy the successes and achievements of the Sinai province. They are frustrated because their achievements lag behind the Sinai province’s, and for that reason they have begun to criticize it and incite against it.” Al-Ramadiyun is a nickname for the members of the Dughmush clan, who established their own powerful militia called Jaish Al-Islam and presented it as a group affiliated with global jihad. The members of Al-Nusra Al-Maqdisiyya are apparently referring here to tensions between the Dughmush clan and Salafi-jihadis in Gaza.

5.” All arrests and difficulties that faced by supporters of the Caliphate in Gaza are a duty that they met willingly and freely, for worship of Allah and for the sacred caliphate enterprise. These supporters did not bear this as a favor to the Caliphate”

“We call upon supporters of the Caliphate in Gaza to continue focusing on supporting the Caliphate as they have been doing, and not to deal with rumors”.
“We are continuing on the path of supporting the Caliphate, and Sinai province in particular…”

Al-Nusra Al-Maqdisisiyya’s clarification notice.

Endnotes:

[1] Telegram.me/jabal_1o0, February 29, 2016.

[2] ISIS rejects democracy and therefore uses the term pejoratively.

[3] Ra’ed Al-Attar was the commander of Hamas’ military wing in the southern district of the Gaza Strip, and was among the leaders of its weapons’ smuggling operations. He was killed by the IDF in August 2014.

[4] ‘Abd Al-Rahman Al-Nouri’s death in Syria was announced by pro-ISIS outlets online in July 2014. Paldf.net, July 7, 2014.

[5] Arafat Al-Sa’idi’s death in Syria was announced in May 2014 by the pro-ISIS forum Jihadi Media Platform and Twitter accounts associated with Gazan ISIS supporters. Al-Hayat (London), May 16, 2014.

[6] The phenomenon of members of Hamas’ military wing joining ISIS is a known one. The death of Abd Al-Ilah Qishta was a source for much confusion . The Egyptian army reported that it had killed Qishta in the Sinai, while other sources reported he had died fighting for ISIS in Libya. While some sources in his hometown of Rafah confirmed that he was a commander in Hamas’ military wing, his family denied that he had joined ISIS. Aljazeera.net, February 13, 2015; Raya.ps, February 11, 2015; Alwafd.org, February 11, 2015. Hamas officials denied he was a member of its military wing. Gazaalan.net, February 11, 2015.

[7] ISIS sources announced Muflih Abu ‘Adhira’s death February 15, 2016, without providing details about the circumstances in which he died. No Libyan sources claimed responsibility for killing him Twitter.com/Xog313/status/699392667814400000; Maannews.net, February 16, 2016.

[8] “Majlis Shoura Al-Mujahideen in the Environs of Jerusalem ” was a group formed by a merger of Salafi-jihadi factions operating in the Gaza Strip. Its establishment was announced in June 2012. In October 2012 the two leaders of the group were killed in an Israeli airstrike. See MEMRI JTTM report New Jihadi Group In Gaza Announces Its Establishment, Takes Responsibility For Attack In Southern Israel, Reveals Saudi And Egyptian Fighters Among Its Ranks, June 19, 2012. .

[9] For examples of ISIS campaigns calling on jihadis in various countries to join its ranks, see MEMRI JTTM report ISIS Launches Campaign Urging North African Muslims, Al-Qaeda Members To Join Its Rank, Target Local Governments, January 21, 2016; and MEMRI JTTM report ISIS Steps Up Efforts To Divide Somali Al-Qaeda Affiliate Al-Shabab, Calls On Its Members To Join ISIS’s Ranks, October 2, 2015.

[10] Abu ‘Abdallah appears to overlook ISIS’s widespread media campaign in which it lashed out at Hamas and encouraged Palestinians to continue escalating their wave of attacks. See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Series Report No. 1195, ISIS Campaign: Encouraging Palestinians To Carry Out Lone Wolf Attacks, October 20, 2015; Also, in July 2015 in July 2015 ISIS’s Aleppo branch released a video featuring three fighters from Gaza who vowed to take vengeance on Hamas. See MEMRI JTTM clip Palestinian ISIS Fighters in Aleppo Threaten Hamas: Gaza Shall Witness Blood and Torn Body Parts, July 2, 2015. For more on ISIS’s ambivalent relationship with the Palestinian issue and with its supporters in Palestine see: MEMRI Daily Brief no. 66, The Islamic State (ISIS) And Palestine – Rhetoric vs. Reality, November 19, 2015.

[11] Source: Telegram.me, Mu’assasat Al-Nusra Al-Maqdisiyya channel, February 27, 2016.

China to lay off five to six million workers

Posted on March 1, 2016March 1, 2016 by Denise Simon

Hank Paulson: China needs to let ‘failing companies fail’

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who oversaw bank bailouts during the global financial crisis, has different advice for China: Let companies fail.

“They can show right now they’re very serious about dealing with inefficient state-owned enterprises as they take capacity out of the steel industry, coal industry and others by letting some failing companies fail,” Paulson, who was Treasury secretary from 2006-2009, told CNBC’s Squawk Box on the sidelines of an Institute of International Finance event organized in conjunction with the G20 meeting in Shanghai.

As Treasury secretary, Paulson oversaw a $700 billion government-funded bailout of U.S. financial institutions that were seen as “too big to fail” in the global financial crisis.

Paulson, who is also a former chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, added that China needed to move faster to promote competition.

“Competition is about opening up to the private sector, which is the future, and it’s about putting the state-owned enterprises on a level playing field,” said Paulson,, who earlier this decade founded the independent think tank Paulson Institute promoting sustainable and environmental projects. “There’s clearly room to move faster.”

Last year, China issued guidance on reforming often-inefficient state enterprises, such as introducing mixed public-private ownership as well as pushing for mergers and share sales, but the market isn’t always certain of progress on this front.

Exclusive: China to lay off five to six million workers, earmarks at least $23 billion

Reuters: China aims to lay off 5-6 million state workers over the next two to three years as part of efforts to curb industrial overcapacity and pollution, two reliable sources said, Beijing’s boldest retrenchment program in almost two decades.

China’s leadership, obsessed with maintaining stability and making sure redundancies do not lead to unrest, will spend nearly 150 billion yuan ($23 billion) to cover layoffs in just the coal and steel sectors in the next 2-3 years.

The overall figure is likely to rise as closures spread to other industries and even more funding will be required to handle the debt left behind by “zombie” state firms.

The term refers to companies that have shut down some of their operations but keep staff on their rolls since local governments are worried about the social and economic impact of bankruptcies and unemployment.

Shutting down “zombie firms” has been identified as one of the government’s priorities this year, with China’s Premier Li Keqiang promising in December that they would soon “go under the knife”..

The government plans to lay off five million workers in industries suffering from a supply glut, one source with ties to the leadership said.

A second source with leadership ties put the number of layoffs at six million. Both sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media about the politically sensitive subject for fear of sparking social unrest.

The ministry of industry did not immediately respond when asked for comment on the reports.

The hugely inefficient state sector employed around 37 million people in 2013 and accounts for about 40 percent of the country’s industrial output and nearly half of its bank lending.

It is China’s most significant nationwide retrenchment since the restructuring of state-owned enterprises from 1998 to 2003 led to around 28 million redundancies and cost the central government about 73.1 billion yuan ($11.2 billion) in resettlement funds.

On Monday, Yin Weimin, the minister for human resources and social security, said China expects to lay off 1.8 million workers in the coal and steel industries, but he did not give a timeframe.

China aims to cut capacity gluts in as many as seven sectors, including cement, glassmaking and shipbuilding, but the oversupplied solar power industry is likely to be spared any large-scale restructuring because it still has growth potential, the first source said.

DEBT OVERHANG

The government has already drawn up plans to cut as much as 150 million tonnes of crude steel capacity and 500 million tonnes of surplus coal production in the next three to five years.

It has earmarked 100 billion yuan in central government funds to deal directly with the layoffs from steel and coal over the next two years, vice-industry minister Feng Fei said last week.

The Ministry of Finance said in January it would also collect 46 billion yuan from surcharges on coal-fired power over the coming three years in order to resettle workers. In addition, an assortment of local government matching funds will also be made available.

However, the funds currently being offered will do little to resolve the problems of debts held by zombie firms, which could overwhelm local banks if they are not handled correctly.

“They have proposed this dedicated fund only to pay the workers, but there is no money for the bad debts, and if the bad debts are too big the banks will have problems and there will be panic,” said Xu Zhongbo, head of Beijing Metal Consulting, who advises Chinese steel mills.

Factories shut down would have to repay bank loans to avoid saddling state banks with a mountain of non-performing loans, the sources said. “Triangular debt”, or money owed by firms to other enterprises, would also have to be resolved, they added.

Although China has promised to help local banks transfer the bad debts of zombie steel mills to asset management firms, local governments are not expected to gain access to the worker lay-off funds until the zombie firms have actually been shut down and debt issues settled.

($1 = 6.5476 Chinese yuan)

The Court Telling Texas NO on Barring Refugees

Posted on March 1, 2016March 1, 2016 by Denise Simon

Federal Court Declines to Bar the Resettlement of

Syrian Refugees in Texas

02/26/2016

FAS: In a decision issued on February 8, 2016, a federal district court denied the State of Texas’s request that the federal

government and a private refugee relief organization be temporarily barred from resettling Syrian refugees within the

state pending resolution of Texas’s challenge to such resettlement. Texas had filed this suit in December 2015, after

terrorist attacks in Paris, France and San Bernardino, California, perpetrated by persons with ties or allegiance to the

Islamic State, due to concerns that terrorists could enter the United States through the refugee resettlement program.

The court’s decision focused on the standards that plaintiffs must meet to obtain a preliminary injunction, discussed

below. However, in so doing, the court construed language in Section 412 of the Immigration and Nationality Act

(INA) requiring the federal government to “consult regularly … with State and local governments” about refugee

placement. The court’s reading of this provision could have implications for certain congressional proposals to give

states greater control over refugee resettlement.

Overview of the Court’s Decision

The court denied the preliminary injunction, in part, because it found that Texas had failed to establish a substantial

threat of irreparable injury if the federal government and the private refugee relief organization were allowed to resettle

Syrian refugees in Texas. Such a showing is required for a preliminary injunction, along with a showing that (A) the

party seeking the injunction has a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; (B) the alleged injury, if the injunction

is denied, outweighs any harm that would result if the injunction is granted; and (C) the grant of an injunction will not

disserve the public interest.

In finding that Texas failed to meet its burden of showing irreparable injury, the court noted that the evidence produced

by Texas showed only that “Syrian refugees pose some risk.” Texas did not, in the court’s view, demonstrate that

terrorists have infiltrated the refugee program, or that the particular individuals whose settlement Texas sought to block

are refugees “intent on causing harm.” It thus found the evidence “insufficient” to establish a substantial risk of

irreparable injury. The court similarly rejected Texas’s argument that it was irreparably harmed because the defendants’

failure to provide Texas with detailed information about any refugees settled in Texas deprived Texas of an alleged

“statutory right to foreknowledge” of refugees’ backgrounds that had been created by INA §412’s requirement that

federal agencies consult with state and local governments about refugee placement. The court further found that a

clause in Texas’s contract with the relief organization, which purported to establish a presumption of irreparable harm

if the organization were to breach the contract was immaterial, since the clause is not binding on the court and does not,

in itself, justify the “extraordinary relief” of a preliminary injunction.

The court also found that Texas was unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the refugee resettlement plans

because “it has no viable cause of action” against the federal government. Texas’s argument here had been based, in

part, on its view that the federal government’s actions in resettling refugees in Texas run afoul of INA § 412, which, in

relevant part, provides that federal officials:

shall consult regularly (not less often than quarterly) with State and local government and private nonprofit

voluntary agencies concerning the [refugee] sponsorship process and the intended distribution of refugees among

the States and localities before their placement in those States and localities.

In particular, Texas took the view that this provision, along with the terms of its contract with private relief

organization, required it to receive detailed demographic, medical, security, and other information about individual

refugees before they are resettled in Texas.

The court did not reach the merits of this argument, instead finding that Texas cannot sue to enforce INA § 412 because

this provision does not create a private right of action. The court based this conclusion on Supreme Court precedents

finding that private rights of action to enforce federal law must be created by Congress, and the “judicial task is to

interpret the statute Congress passed to determine whether it displays an intent to create” such a right. In INA § 412,

the court found no such intent since the provisions of this section do not “confer any rights directly on the States.”

Instead, they are framed as a “general … command to a federal agency” to federal officials to consult with their state

counterparts. Such general prohibitions or commands have been seen as insufficient to create private rights of action in

other cases.

Implications of the Court’s Decision

The court’s finding that INA § 412 does not create a private right of action could have implications for certain proposals

in the 114th Congress to give states and localities greater input in the refugee resettlement process. Many proposed bills

would expressly authorize state officials to decline the resettlement of particular refugees within their jurisdictions, a

power which they lack under current law, as discussed in an earlier Sidebar posting. However, some bills take a

different approach and instead require that the federal government give state and local officials certain notices before

placing refugees within their jurisdiction. If Congress wants to ensure that states and localities can enforce such notice

requirements, it may wish to draft the latter type of measures in such a way that the statute can be seen as conferring

rights directly on the states and local governments, rather than imposing general commands on federal agencies. Only if

measures are so drafted would states and localities potentially be able to enforce the notice requirements (and even then

other limits on the federal courts’ jurisdiction could apply, such as the mootness doctrine, if for example, the refugees

are already settled within the state).

Handwritten: bin Ladin’s Last Will

Posted on March 1, 2016March 1, 2016 by Denise Simon

Bin Laden’s Bookshelf: Bequeathing Millions for Jihad, Exposing Rifts with al-Qa’ida in Iraq, and Planning a 9/11 Tenth Anniversary Media Blitz

ODNI: Osama bin Laden’s handwritten will left millions for jihad. But even in the period shortly before his death, bin Laden placed the utmost importance on portraying his fraying organization as a united enterprise-while his lieutenants privately wrestled with their growing schism from al- Qa’ida in Iraq. As the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approached, bin Laden envisioned a worldwide media campaign, suggesting his media team work with specific news outlets.

This emergent portrait of bin Laden comes together today via documents from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released in the second batch of media recovered during the 2011 raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, at the compound used to hide Osama bin Laden.

UBL1

An intelligence officer reviews a copy of Osama Bin Laden’s will, released along with other
documents by ODNI on March 1, 2016 (Photo by Brian Murphy, ODNI Public Affairs)The release aligns with the president’s call for increased transparency-consistent with national security prerogatives-and the 2014 Intelligence Authorization Act, which required the ODNI to conduct a review of the documents for release.




	Scan of Original Document		English Translation

Osama bin Laden’s Will “In regard to the money that is in Sudan”Beginning last summer and with DNI approval, the CIA spearheaded a rigorous interagency review of the classified documents under the auspices of the White House’s National Security Council staff. Representatives from seven agencies combed through the documents-with the goals of increasing transparency and responding to the congressionally-directed action.




	Scan of Original Document		English Translation

“It’s important that the documents collected at bin Laden’s compound be made available to the public. This was no easy feat as members of the task force dedicated themselves over a long period of time working in an Intelligence Community facility to review and declassify as many documents as possible,” said Brian Hale, ODNI Director of Public Affairs.




	Scan of Original Document		English Translation

Given the large number of documents to review, and the increasing public demand to see them, the White House asked ODNI to declassify and release the documents as they were ready. This is the second tranche to be released. The first tranche was released May 20, 2015. This initial posting contained two sections, a list of non-classified, English-language material found in and around the compound and a selection of now-declassified documents.




	Scan of Original Document		English Translation

Those documents, as well as the additional declassified material released today, reflect on a range of topics, including reporting fissures between AQ and AQ in Iraq and bin Laden’s concern about AQ’s public image-and his desire to depict AQ as a united organization.




	Scan of Original Document		English Translation

Since the first release, the Intelligence Community has reviewed hundreds of additional documents for possible declassification and release. The document-review process can be time consuming because-once a document is declassified-it cannot be reclassified. The IC needs to ensure no declassified document will directly injure efforts to keep the nation secure. With that in mind, the review is ongoing, with the next release expected later this year.