Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Los Angeles chapter and a California delegate to this year’s Democratic National Convention, triggered a social media uproar on Christmas Day when he sent out a tweet that appeared to imply he wished more people died in a Syria-bound Russian military plane that crashed.
“I’m sad about the crashed Russian military jet. The TU-154 could have carried up to 180 military personnel instead of just 92!” Ayloush said in his tweet.
All 92 people aboard the plane are believed to have died when it crashed into the Black Sea on Sunday morning. Among the passengers killed were members of world-famous Russian military choir who were scheduled to perform at a Russian air force base in Syria.
Ayloush, deleted his tweet a short time later.
In a series of follow-up tweets and a Facebook post, he said he was unaware that noncombatants were among those aboard the plane. But he did not address the death of other Russian military personnel, saying that “Russia’s military is engaging in major war crimes and atrocities against innocent civilians in Syria.”
Ayloush’s initial comments triggered immediate criticism on Twitter and were picked up a day later by the ultraconservative news site Breitbart and other media outlets.
Conservatives on Twitter were quick to point out that Ayloush is a member of the California Democratic Party. Ayloush was an elected convention delegate and is a member of the state party’s executive board, which is made up of about 500 party members.
Ayoush was not available for comment on Tuesday, and a spokeswoman for CAIR-LA said his Facebook post on the matter was his response.