By Special Correspondent
Washington DC: The dismissal of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Ohio-Columbus chapter executive director Romin Iqbal for serving as a mole for pro-Israeli Islamophobia groups has shocked the Muslim community across United States. CAIR said that “the Islamophobic agent did not cause much damage, and the Israeli and Indian governments did not get the data on Muslim households in America that CAIR prepared with such hard work”.
Since the information became public, several CAIR leaders have issued explanations giving assurances that the alleged culprit was the lone man, and he did not have access to sensitive data.
Ohio-Columbus chapter’s Board of Directors has fired Iqbal–who confessed to working with the hate group after being confronted with the evidence against him– and secured their organization’s key data, assets and infrastructure. CAIR National has also confirmed the safety and security of its systems stating that Iqbal never had access to CAIR data or the data of other local offices, which operate separately and maintain strong security protocols.
A person occupying the highest position in a local chapter recruited by Islamophobic forces is different from an office assistant.
CAIR’s critical work is monitoring and combating anti-Muslim groups, which spend millions of dollars every year to demean, harass and endanger the Muslim community. Last year, CAIR’s national office received extensive and unprecedented information about the inner workings of one of those organizations, the so-called Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT).
IPT was founded by Steven Emerson, a far-right extremist described as an anti-Muslim activist by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Emerson faced international ridicule after a humiliating Fox News interview in 2015, and largely disappeared from mainstream media afterward.
However, the extensive information CAIR received showed that Emerson’s hate group was still active and obsessively monitoring remarks delivered by Muslim public figures. Evidence indicated that Emerson was cursing, threatening and otherwise mistreating his staff for failing to produce enough Islamophobic content.
“The evidence also indicated that Emerson’s hate group was communicating with and providing assistance to Israeli intelligence with the office of then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli government was collaborating with an anti-Muslim hate group,” said Nihad Awad, National Executive Director.
It is feared that data about Muslims and their organizations and volunteers may now possess Islamophobic forces who can sell it to any buyer.
It is about CAIR, and every Muslim organization and center is vulnerable to internal espionage. It is a matter that deserves the highest priority of Islamic groups to protect their community.
“We must realize that each one of us is capable of selling the interests of the community under duress, pressure, or greed. There are buyers willing to pay handsomely. After all, the FBI recruited some 15,000 informants from amongst us to find information. There are other buyers such as evangelical groups, Zionist agents, foreign governments, intelligence agencies such as RAW, MI-5, etc. One cannot control them or the agents working for them. But one can be cautious and careful”, said a CAIR official.
The evidence revealed something even more disturbing that Emerson’s hate group had spent years trying to infiltrate and spy upon prominent mosques and Muslim American organizations using “moles” among their staff and volunteers.
After learning about this situation, we hired an outside law firm and a forensic specialist to vet the evidence we received and provide us with an evidentiary report, said Awad.
