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Organizer's Past Raises Questions about Madrid Interfaith Conference

[Investigative Project on Terrorism ] Steven Emerson - The interfaith conference in Madrid was organized by a man accused of working with a senior al-Qaeda financier who unabashedly supports Palestinian suicide bombings. Abdullah al-Turki organized the conference on behalf of the Muslim World League (MWL), where he is secretary general. The MWL was created by the Saudi royal family in 1962 to "promote Islamic unity" and spread Wahhabi doctrine. In the week following the 9/11 attacks, al-Turki told a radio interviewer that U.S. policy was responsible for the attacks. Bob Blitzer, who served as the FBI's domestic terrorism chief in the 1990s, said he was troubled by a conference purported to be about interfaith dialogue being organized by a group charged with spreading Wahhabism, whose principal organizer is alleged in court papers to have ties to al-Qaeda. The gathering is expected to attract dozens of American-based Muslims, including Sayyed Syeed and Ingrid Mattson from the Islamic Society of North America, Ibrahim Hooper and Nihad Awad from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, as well as six U.S. rabbis.
2008-07-17 01:00:00
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