U.S. and Libyan officials are investigating evidence the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya that killed the ambassador and three American staffers was a planned effort by Muslim jihadists using a protest against an anti-Muslim film as a pretext, but the controversial Council on American-Islamic Relations thinks a “right-wing extremist” ultimately was to blame.
The tweet from CAIR’s national organization said: “Meet The Right-Wing Extremist Behind the Anti-Muslim Film That Sparked Deadly Riots.”
The message included a link to a blog post by journalist Max Blumenthal which contended “the rioting was provoked by an obscure, low-budget anti-Muslim film called ‘The Innocence of Muslims.’”
At a news conference in Los Angeles yesterday, CAIR Los Angeles Executive Director Hussam Ayloush complained the film depicted Muhammad in a “very sexual, very demeaning way” which ultimately incited a “mob to act,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
Researcher and blogger Walid Shoebat, who highlighted CAIR’s Twitter message on his website, pointed out that CAIR bills itself as a civil rights group, yet in this case it ignored the right to freedom of speech.
“If CAIR is saying that the film ‘sparked’ the ‘deadly riots,’ is it saying the producer of the film had no legal basis for producing it?” Shoebat asked.
Contrary to CAIR, U.S. and Libyan officials believe the attack was planned to mark the 9/11 anniversary and the protest of the film was only a pretext.
Wanis al-Sharef, eastern Libya’s deputy interior minister, said the Islamic radicals used a civilian protest as a cover for their actions, according to Fox News
Yesterday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers told Fox News that the strike was a “coordinated, military-style” operation.
Shoebat said CAIR has shown its true colors.
“Instead of denouncing the Islamic mobs, it sides with them by attacking the filmmaker as a ‘right-wing extremist,’” he said.
CAIR’s national office yesterday called on Muslims in the Middle East “to ignore the trashy anti-Islam film that resulted in the attacks.”
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, a California Coptic Christia convicted of financial crimes, has acknowledged he produced the film.
At a press conference at CAIR’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., the group’s leaders denied access to a reporter from the Daily Caller, calling his news outlet a “hate group.”
The Daily Caller said the reporter handed his credentials to Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR’s communications director.
Hooper smirked, according to the news site, and told the reporter: “The Daily Caller is not a news outlet, it is a hate group. You cannot come in.”
In a column, Daily Caller Senior Editor Jamie Weinstein shot back.
“Here’s a tip, fellas: A group that has been named an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme that provided funding to a terror group with genocidal ambitions (read Hamas’ charter) probably shouldn’t be prancing around and labeling other groups hate organizations.”
CAIR was named by the Justice Department an unindicted co-conspirator in the prosecution of the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation. In 2009, the founders of the Islamic charity were given life sentences for funneling $12 million to Hamas.
CAIR has sued a co-author, David Gaubatz, of a WND Books expose that presents evidence for the Islamic group’s link to radical jihad. “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America,” co-authored with Paul Sperry, recounts CAIR’s origin as a front group for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, the worldwide movement that has stated its intent to transform the U.S. into a Saudi-style Islamic state.
FBI wiretap evidence from the Holy Land Foundation case showed CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad was at an October 1993 meeting of Hamas leaders and activists in Philadelphia. CAIR was born out of a need to give a “media twinkle” to the Muslim leaders’ agenda of supporting violent jihad abroad while slowly institutionalizing Islamic law at home.