Even though terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta was a member, Bush Administration officials are quietly advocating "reaching out" to the Muslim Brotherhood, according to a recent article in the Washington Post, to "become a barrier against jihadists worldwide.”
 
As more information about his almost-lifelong extremist connections becomes known, it appears that Atta's association with the radical Brotherhood dates from at least the very early 1990's.
 
Why would an Administration vowing to vigorously prosecute the "War on Terror" contemplate cozying up to a terrorist group which is reportedly "dedicated to creating an Islamiccivilization that harks back to the caliphates of the 7th and 8th centuries?"
Maybe somebody could ask Osama bin Laden the next time he holds a press conference.  
 
The Washington Post published a front-page story detailing the current status of the Muslim Brotherhood, dated September 10, 2004:
 
“Since the Sept. 11 attacks, pockets in the government — including officials in State's Near East bureau and diplomats posted overseas — have quietly advocated that the government reach out to the Brotherhood and its allies. These officials… hope the Brotherhood can temper its anti-U.S. stance and become a barrier against jihadists worldwide.”
Link
 
It appears the Bush Administration’s newest ally in the war on terror will be the Muslim Brotherhood. The Post’s article provides a short background of America’s potential ‘barrier against jihadists’:
 
“The Brotherhood… is dedicated to creating an Islamic civilization that harks back to the caliphates of the 7th and8th centuries, one that would segregate women from public life and scorn nonbelievers… The Brotherhood created the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas… Some of its supporters went on to help found al Qaeda… [including] Ayman Zawahiri, now Osama bin Laden's deputy…”

“The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928… and preached that governments should be ruled by Islamic law, or sharia… They were organized into tiers of membership, with some forming a covert military wing…”
 
“Another Brotherhood leader, Sayyid Qutb… advocated militant jihad against nonbelievers and revolution against impure Muslim states… Qutb's books would later provide the philosophical underpinning for jihadists such as bin Laden…”
 
 “Because the Brotherhood is a secret society, its precise links around the world are hard to determine, U.S. officials said…”
 
“A senior U.S. law enforcement official said… "We are very interested in relations among people and entities,"… "People know each other for 20 years and will do anything for them because they are all 'brothers.'”
Link
 
 
The article's use of the word ‘brothers’ in quotation marks was intriguing. Recalling Daniel Hopsicker’s exclusive interview with the girlfriend of Mohamed Atta, she mentioned that Atta used the term ‘brother’ only when addressing certain people.
 
From the book ‘Welcome to Terrorland’ by Daniel Hopsicker, page 332:
 
“He called certain people, Arabic people, ‘my brother,’ Amanda [Atta’s American girlfriend] said. “… But not all Arabs, so it wasn’t like anyone who was a Muslim was his brother.”

 
 
Though a common expression, this fact begs the question of whether Atta was a member of the Brotherhood.
 
But surely the Bush Administration would not ally itself in the war on terror with a group to which Mohamed Atta, the catalyst of the war on terror, belonged.
 
After all, the 9-11 Report has stated that Atta was radicalized by al-Qaeda during his time in Hamburg in the late 1990s. It added Atta was a reserved young man, raised with little religious background by a father who was a practicing attorney.
 
Apparently, neither the Bush Administration nor the 9-11 Commission came across the following reports which shed some light on America’s potential partners in the war on terror.
 
From the BBC, December 12, 2001 by reporter Jane Corbin:
 
“But Mohamed Atta's father had sympathies with a militant Islamic organisation opposed to the government.  This was the political background against which his son grew up.  The father's views haven't changed to this day.”

 
 
More from BBC reporter Jane Corbin, National Public Radio September 5, 2002:
 
“But it's interesting because in speaking to him [Atta’s father], we discovered that, really, many of the ideas that his son perhaps represented in a more extreme form had their origin in his father, who was a member of an underground Muslim grouping, the Muslim Brotherhood, which certainly some decades ago was a proscribed organization. And, you know, Atta Sr. had some very strong feelings about America as well. And I think you would see where some of the ideas that affected his son, Mohamed Atta, came from.”
Link
 
 
The apple does not fall far from the tree, as reported by The Observer (UK) September 23, 2001:
 
 “Atta made no secret of where his sympathies lay. He had graduated from a faculty that was a hotbed of fundamentalist agitation and gone on to join the Engineers Syndicate, one of three professional associations controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Link
 
 
From The Washington Post September 23, 2001:
 
“In 1985, Atta entered the architecture school in the engineering department at Cairo University… In 1990, after finishing his studies in architecture, Atta joined what is called an "engineering syndicate," a professional or trade group. Like the school that trained many of its engineers, the syndicate was an unofficial base for the Muslim Brotherhood, where it recruited and propagated its ideas, including the demonization of the United States.”

 
 
And the press’s third and final mention of Atta’s membership in the Brotherhood, from the December 31st, 2001 issue of Newsweek:
 
“The clues reach back at least to the early 1990s, when Atta came under the spell of the Muslim Brotherhood…”

 
 
Yes, Mohamed Atta was raised by a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and himself became a member in 1990. This life-long connection between Atta and the Brotherhood is sure to raise questions regarding the current policies of Bush Administration officials.
 
As is a quick look at the history of the Muslim Brotherhood and the World Trade Center:
 
Beginning in the early 1990s, as reported in The Houston Chronicle, March 12, 1993:
 
“The funds wired over recent months into the… bank account of two arrested suspects in the World Trade Center bombing have been traced to Germany, law enforcement officials said Thursday.”
 
“Germany has one of the largest Islamic communities in Europe and has been used by an array of Middle East terrorist organizations as a base of operations, intelligence experts say… Germany, which has more than 2 million Muslims in a population of 80 million, has long been a hotbed of Islamic and radical Arab activity.”
 
“The largest Islamic center in Germany… has traditionally been dominated by Syrian members of the Muslim Brotherhood…”
 
“The Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood… has been active in Germany since they sought refuge from the fierce repression in the 1950s…”
Link
 
 
Newsweek April 23, 2003:
 
“Investigators in the United States and Hamburg, Germany, tell NEWSWEEK they believe that exiled members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood played critical roles in supporting and recruiting the Hamburg-based leaders of the Al Qaeda cells that carried out the 9-11 attacks. One suspected figure in that nexus is alleged Syrian Muslim Brotherhood member… Mohammed Haidar Zammar. German and U.S. investigators believe the 300-pound Zammar helped arrange for Mohammed Atta and other future 9-11 terrorists to attend Al Qaeda terrorist training camps in Afghanistan–and that the 9-11 plot was hatched while the Hamburg suspects were in the camps."

 
 
From The Chicago Tribune March 9, 2003:
 
 “Darkazanli, 44… is identified by intelligence officials in Hamburg as a longtime member of the Syrian wing of the ultra-radical Muslim Brotherhood…”
 
“Darkazanli nevertheless has a history of associations with high-level Al Qaeda figures going back at least to 1993, the year he told police he first met Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, described by U.S. prosecutors as a "founding member" of Al Qaeda who once tried to acquire nuclear weapons for Osama bin Laden. In 1995, police files show, Darkazanli opened a joint bank account in Hamburg with Salim, who allegedly specialized in setting up bin Laden-owned companies in Sudan… At the time of his arrest Salim had Darkazanli's number programmed into his cell phone.”

 
 
From The Associated Press, April 26, 2002:
 
“Mamoun Darkazanli, a Syrian-born businessman in Hamburg, described by the Spanish police as "belonging to the most intimate circle of Mohamed Atta."’

 
 
From The Chicago Tribune November 3, 2002:
 
“Tatex Trading has employed, at various times in the past 15 years, two Syrian-born German citizens… who are high on the list of Sept. 11 suspects.”
 

“Investigators also say Atta himself worked for a time at Tatex…”
 
“The origins of Tatex Trading itself have become of interest to investigators… Tatex investor is Mohamad Majed Said, a former head of Syria's General Intelligence Directorate… Investigators say they are frankly puzzled by their discovery of the Said family's role in Tatex, especially in view of Tatari's [Tatex’s managing director] reputed membership in the radical Muslim Brotherhood… a senior German intelligence official said the Syrian government has identified Tatari as a member.”

 
 
From The Washington Post, September 10, 2004:
 
“The architect of the Sept. 11 strikes, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, told U.S. interrogators that he was drawn to violent jihad after joining the Brotherhood in Kuwait at age 16…”
 
“Brotherhood radicals in Germany and Spain are suspected of organizing logistical support for the al Qaeda cell that carried out the attacks…”

 
 
Those who read last week’s article entitled ‘9/11 Conspirators met with Bush Officials after the Attack’ will be familiar the following two Brotherhood figures.
 
The first is terrorist Sami al-Arian, who incorporated Baraka Group in 2000. It was Baraka Group which funded the 9/11 hijackers while they were inside the U.S. Al-Arian was also the leader and founder of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. From The St. Petersburg Times, February 21, 2003:
 
“PIJ traces its origins to the Muslim Brotherhood…”

 
 
The second is Abdulrahman al-Amoudi, who was photographed in Washington D.C. alongside both the ‘contact person’ for bin Laden and the ‘U.S. contact’ for Atta just months before the attack. From Congressional testimony by Richard Clarke on October 22, 2003:
 
“Abdurahman Alamoudi, allegedly [a] senior figure in the Muslim Brotherhood…”

 
 
More Congressional testimony from Richard Clarke, on October 14, 2003:
 
“Alamoudi: The operations chief in the U.S. In 1990 Abdurahman Alamoudi, an emigre from Eritrea of Yemeni descent and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, set up a political action organization in Washington called the American Muslim Council (AMC). This subcommittee heard testimony almost six years ago that the AMC, based at 1212 New York Avenue NW, was inter alia, the "de facto lobbying arm of the Muslim Brotherhood.’”

 
 
It may prove to be a long four years if these types of policy decisions are the 'mandate' of which the administration has spoken in the days following the election. May God Bless America.