{"id":61792,"date":"2015-08-03T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2015-08-03T11:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=61792"},"modified":"2015-07-31T18:05:33","modified_gmt":"2015-07-31T17:05:33","slug":"the-dublin-doha-nexus-irelands-key-role-in-the-muslim-brotherhoods-global-jihad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/08\/the-dublin-doha-nexus-irelands-key-role-in-the-muslim-brotherhoods-global-jihad\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dublin-Doha Nexus: Ireland\u2019s Key Role in the Muslim Brotherhood\u2019s Global Jihad"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 30, 2015 – <\/em>In a July 25 Irish Independent <\/em>analysis piece<\/a> entitled \u201cIbrahim\u2019s two-year detention says much about Egypt today,\u201d Mary Fitzgerald chastises the Irish government for not doing more to secure the release of Ibrahim Halawa, an Irish citizen arrested by the Egyptian authorities for his part in the August 17, 2013 Ramses Square protests against the army\u2019s ousting of the Muslim Brotherhood\u2019s Mohammed Morsi.<\/p>\n

\"mary-fitzgerald<\/a>Fitzgerald\u2019s sympathies are clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe military coup of 2013 has ushered in a regime that is dramatically more repressive than that of Hosni Mubarak, the dictator forced to step down in the face of mass protests in the heady days of 2011,\u201d she opines. \u201cHundreds of people have been swept up and detained for being in the wrong place at the wrong time as the regime of president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi appears determined to snuff out the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest and oldest opposition movement in Egypt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in those \u201cheady days of 2011\u201d the then Irish Times<\/em> foreign affairs correspondent was unequivocally enthusiastic about the revolutionary wave roiling the region. In an interview<\/a> she gave to her current employer entitled \u201cListening to Libya\u2019s stories of freedom,\u201d Fitzgerald waxed lyrical about her first hand experiences in the North African country that has subsequently imploded into chaos and violence from which nobody\u2014not even the prime minister\u2014is safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe story of Libya\u2019s uprising is hard to beat, especially for those of us who were there right from the beginning \u2013 I arrived in Libya ten days after the first protests began on February 15. Several friends who covered the fall of the Berlin Wall and all that followed in 1989 say Libya \u2013 or the Arab Spring more generally \u2013 is the only story that has grabbed them in the same way,\u201d she told the Irish Independent<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Libyan uprising was a genuine people\u2019s revolution involving Libyans from all walks of life \u2013 young, old, male, female, rich and poor \u2013 and their strength and courage in the face of Gaddafi\u2019s brutality was hugely inspiring and very moving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Revolutionary chickens come home to roost<\/strong><\/p>\n

Four years on, three Irish citizens were among the 38 holidaymakers brutally murdered on a beach in neighbouring Tunisia last month by a gunman believed to have been trained<\/a> in the now anarchic Libya\u2014quite possibly by some of those same strong and courageous revolutionaries promoted by Fitzgerald.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe murder of three Irish citizens at a tourist resort in north Africa has brought Islamic terrorism much closer to home,\u201d\u00a0Cormac O\u2019Keeffe observed in the Irish Examiner<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil now we have looked on in shock, and revulsion, at terror attacks targeting other Europeans, either across the Middle East and North Africa, or on European soil. However, with the slaughter on the beaches of Tunisia of Lorna Carty, and Laurence and Martina Hayes, this is a landmark moment for this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Keeffe quoted Martina\u2019s brother Billy Kelly, who told the media, \u201cWe feel bitter. Irish people have nothing to do with these terrorists. The people who did this are evil rats.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Irish Examiner<\/em> report appears to be merely stating the obvious. However, the Tunisia beach massacre was by no means Ireland\u2019s first brush with Islamist terrorism. And while the bereaved Mr. Kelly sincerely believes that the Irish have nothing to do with these evildoers, there are some in the country who have quite a lot to do with them.<\/p>\n

Irish jihadis<\/strong><\/p>\n

A CNN study<\/a> published in September 2014 surprisingly found that Ireland is second only to Finland among countries with the greatest percentage of Muslims who have gone to fight in Syria. Although the number of fighters is still small\u201425 to 30 as of last September\u2014the 0.07 percent of Ireland\u2019s 43,000 Muslim population that have joined the global jihad against President Bashar al-Assad means that<\/a> \u201cthere are four times as many\u00a0Irish Muslims as British Muslims fighting in Syria, proportionately speaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

While most people in Ireland remain blissfully unaware of these disturbing developments, a keen observer of Western-backed terrorism against Libya and Syria has sought to raise awareness of the little-known Irish role in global jihadism. In a Facebook post, Al Lonergan<\/a> connected the dots obscured by Ireland\u2019s \u201cpaper of record<\/a>\u201d and other mainstream media.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe following image provides information regarding an Irish citizen\u2019s connection to an alleged leader of ISIS in North Africa and a terror funder in Syria,\u201d the Irish activist noted. \u201cHowever it is unlikely that the Irish media will want to mention this fact as they promoted this guy as a \u2018freedom fighter\u2019 while he was serving the NATO agenda in destroying Libya and Syria, but the chickens are coming home to roost.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"mahdi-al-harati-montage<\/a>Not only has the \u201csoft-spoken\u201d Libyan-born Irish citizen Mahdi al-Harati served the NATO agenda in Libya and Syria, \u201cthe gentle Irishman\u201d was inadvertently outed by an Irish tabloid in 2011 as an asset of American intelligence.<\/p>\n

\u201cA gang of rogue Irish travellers is in the frame for the bizarre robbery of \u20ac200,000 in cash donated by US spies to Libyan freedom fighters,\u201d began the\u00a0Sunday World<\/a> report. \u201cIn an astonishing tale worthy of the John le Carre [sic] novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the cash that was destined for rebels fighting Colonel Gaddafi\u2019s forces was stolen from a hot press in a Dublin house. Gardai [sic] are now investigating the extraordinary robbery which is being blamed on a traveller gang from the Limerick town of Rathkeale. An Irish freedom fighter who helped bring down Gaddafi\u2019s hated regime in Libya has claimed that \u20ac200,000 cash stolen from his Dublin home was given to him by an American intelligence agency.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was no mention of Harati\u2019s ties to U.S. intelligence, however, in Mary Fitzgerald\u2019s August 2011 piece for the \u201cdemocracy-promoting<\/a>\u201d Foreign Policy<\/em><\/a> magazine. In \u201cThe Syrian Rebels\u2019 Libyan Weapon,\u201d the jihadists\u2019 leading publicist<\/a> in Irish media wrote:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Tripoli Brigade was one of the first rebel units into the Libyan capital in August 2011. Its fighters, who included many Libyan expatriates, had received training from Qatari special forces in Nalut, a town in Libya\u2019s western mountains. After the fall of Tripoli, during which he participated in the battle for Muammar al-Qaddafi\u2019s Bab al-Aziziya compound, Harati was appointed deputy head of the Tripoli Military Council (TMC), serving under Abdel Hakim Belhaj, former leader of the now-defunct Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. Last autumn Harati stepped down as commander of the brigade and as TMC deputy. He made his first trip to Syria shortly afterward for what he says was initially humanitarian work in the country\u2019s northern borderlands.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fact that Libyan-born Irish jihadis were trained by Qatari special forces is far from the only link that connects Doha to Dublin. As Fitzgerald observes in her Irish Independent<\/em> piece, Ibrahim Halawa at one point shared a cell with Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste; and just before his arrest, Halawa\u2019s sisters were interviewed by the Qatari-owned TV channel infamous for its cheerleading for the so-called \u201cArab Spring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreover, as Fitzgerald delicately puts it, \u201cIbrahim\u2019s case is perhaps complicated by the fact his father is the secretary of the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR), a group of scholars that issues religious opinions on practical matters specific to Muslims in Europe. It is an offshoot of the Brussels-based Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe (FIOE), an umbrella group of various branches and affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps, indeed!<\/p>\n

In 2011, Sheikh Hussein Halawa hosted the controversial ECFR head, the Qatar-based Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is also from Egypt and a close friend<\/a>, for a five-day conference<\/a> in one of the Muslim Brotherhood\u2019s main European centres at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland in Clonskeagh, Dublin. In that same \u201cheady\u201d year, Qaradawi used his Al Jazeera platform<\/a> to issue fatwas against Gaddafi in Libya<\/a> and Assad in Syria<\/a>. (Following the 2013 ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood government, he also issued a call for jihad in Egypt<\/a>.) Although he is banned<\/a> from the U.S. and the U.K. for his extremist views, the Brotherhood\u2019s influential spiritual leader perhaps not surprisingly<\/a> expressed his support for the NATO-imposed \u201cno fly zone\u201d over Libya.<\/p>\n

Transit hub for \u201cgentle\u201d jihadis<\/strong><\/p>\n

In January, the Sunday Independent<\/em><\/a> reported that Ireland is now being used as a \u201ctransit hub for Jihadis heading for Iraq and Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA small number of Irish-based Muslim extremists have been playing a key role in providing logistical and financial support to international terror groups, especially Islamic State (IS),\u201d the well-known Irish crime reporter Paul Williams revealed. \u201cThe central group, consisting of about 12 radicals, are suspected of harbouring jihadi fighters from Britain and mainland Europe and supplying them with fake documentation, including false passports.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the face of it, the Irish government seems duly concerned about the growing Islamist threat and appears to be taking steps to counter it. In the past year, a Counter Terrorism International (CTI) unit has been established in the Garda Crime and Security section to specifically target the Islamic terror support groups here; while Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald told a parliamentary committee that the Garda\u00ed were aware that about 30 suspected jihadis had travelled from Ireland to take part in various conflicts since the start of the \u201cArab Spring.\u201d<\/p>\n

One suspects, however, that Minister Fitzgerald\u2019s globetrotting namesake<\/a> in the Irish media has yet to be questioned by the state\u2019s brand new counter-terrorism unit about her work<\/a> as advocate<\/a> for the \u201cgentle\u201d Irish \u201cfreedom fighters\u201d in the Muslim Brotherhood\u2019s jihad<\/a> against secular Arab regimes.<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/p>\n

Maidhc \u00d3 Cathail is a widely published <\/em>writer<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>political analyst<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 thepassionateattachment.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A CNN study published in September 2014 surprisingly found that Ireland is second only to Finland among countries with the greatest percentage of Muslims who have gone to fight in Syria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61792\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}