Yesterday, RadicalIslam.org reported how the newly elected interim Prime Minister of the Syrian Opposition Coalition, Ghassan Hitto, was backed by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and was a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) official, a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity. More disturbing information has since come out about Hitto’s role in the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood network.
The Indy Star has new details about his resume. Hitto worked for the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Like CAIR, ISNA was designated by the federal government as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial. The government listed it among current and past U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entities.
ISNA and several of its components are listed in a 1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood strategy memo as one of “our organizations and the organizations of our friends.” The Brotherhood describes its agenda as “a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within…"
At ISNA, Hitto worked “in the technology department, bookstore and convention planning.” The ISNA bookstore and conventions have long featured Islamist rhetoric, and Hitto helped make that happen. His wife worked as an “assistant in the development office.”
The article includes praise for Hitto and his wife from Sayyid Syeed, a senior ISNA official who is now the group’s point man for interfaith relations. Syeed is quoted as saying that Hitto’s selection “means they are committing themselves to a practical, moderate and balanced understanding of Islam.” Yet, a new documentary titled The Grand Deception includes footage of Syeed saying in 2006, “our job is to change the constitution of America.”
The newspaper reports that Hitto also worked for the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT). Continuing the pattern, NAIT was also designated an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land trial and listed as a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity. NAIT, like ISNA and CAIR’s predecessor, is also identified in the 1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood memo as one of its fronts.
The Independent adds that Hitto was a board member of a Muslim American Society chapter. Federal prosecutors said in 2008 that “MAS was founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” Abdurrahman Alamoudi, a convicted U.S. Muslim Brotherhood member, said “Everyone knows that MAS is the Muslim Brotherhood.”
In addition, as we reported, Hitto also served on the board of the Muslim Legal Fund of America, which raised money to defend the Elashi brothers that were convicted in the Holy Land trial. The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report found that the media called Hitto a “friend of the Elashi family” in 2002 and that he’s linked to the Islamic Association for Palestine, a now-defunct Brotherhood entity that birthed CAIR.
There is no possibility that Hitto was just an average Muslim who became involved with his local CAIR chapter without knowing its background. He has been an official of six groups with strong Brotherhood links, including four active groups identified by the government as U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entities and he has endorsements from some of their top leaders.
The secular democratic activists in Syria see his selection for what it is: A Muslim Brotherhood takeover of the opposition. Burhan Ghalioun, Walid al-Bunni and Kamal al-Labwani are exactly the type of leaders we’d want to lead a new Syria. Here’s what al-Labwani had to say about Hitto’s selection: “The government is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Qatar government. We will be against this government and will not give it legality. Democracy is from the land and from the people not from a council that is composed by the government of Qatar.”
These are the Syrians we should be listening to and allying with. They were ignored by the Obama Administration, quite possibly due to the advice of CAIR, ISNA and the other groups that the administration regularly consults with.
And now, they have been defeated by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood with the help of the “moderate” American Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups and our supposed “allies” in Qatar.
