FBI Cuts Ties With Pro-Saudi Muslim Lobby

Israel’s intelligence community has determined that Egypt, despite numerous operations in 2008, failed to reduce the weapons flow to the Hamas regime in Gaza.

The Middle East Newsline has confirmed that the U.S. law enforcement community has severed relations with a leading Saudi-financed lobbying group.

The FBI has cut ties with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), regarded as the leading U.S. Muslim lobby group, believed to be largely financed by Saudi Arabia.

The Bush administration decided to sever contacts with CAIR headquarters in Washington, D.C., and all 30 of its branches late last year.

“The FBI has had to limit its formal contact with CAIR field offices until certain issues are addressed by CAIR’s national headquarters,” said FBI spokesman John Miller. “CAIR’s leadership is aware of this.”

The FBI decision marked a major shift in the policy of the U.S. law enforcement community toward the Saudi-financed Muslim lobby, which organized anti-Israeli demonstrations during the war with Hamas in January.

“This is an unfortunate legacy of the Bush administration’s misguided and counterproductive efforts to marginalize mainstream American Muslim organizations,” CAIR said.

As late as 2007, FBI representatives attended the fundraising banquet of CAIR’s new branch in Oklahoma. By October 2008, the FBI decided that it would end cooperation with CAIR chapters.

“As you know members of the United States government, especially those serving in a law enforcement capacity, have a duty to be judicious in our activities as representatives of the federal government,” the FBI said in a letter by special agent James Finch. “As a result, if CAIR wishes to pursue an outreach relationship with the FBI, certain issues must be addressed to the satisfaction of the FBI.”

CAIR failed to provide details of its ties to the Hamas movement or regime in the Gaza Strip. The group has been identified as a suspected financier of Hamas.

In January, the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus, reporting the FBI decision, sent a letter to every House member regarding CAIR.