Imagine my surprise: Muslim cleric linked with terror groups. (Hat tip: cbinflux.)

ASIO warned authorities 20 years ago that Sheik Taj al-Din Al-hilaly could inflame communal violence in Australia.

Court judgments show ASIO initially believed the controversial mufti posed a risk to the community because of his alleged propensity to cause or promote violence.

Shortly after his arrival in Australia as the new imam of Lakemba Mosque in 1982, Sheik Hilaly was also linked with a shadowy terrorist group, Soldiers of God, which is thought to have been involved in the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981.

A group of the same name, also known as Ansar al Islam, is among those listed by the Federal Government as a banned terrorist organisation. Western governments believe Ansar al Islam has close ideological and operational links with al-Qaeda.

Sheik Hilaly was also alleged to have endorsed suicide bombing, verbally attacked women and preached a highly political message of extremism.

The Sunday Telegraph columnist Piers Akerman writes today that a former intelligence officer said Sheik Hilaly’s name first surfaced in a report by one of Australia’s most senior intelligence assets in Cairo. The claimed the sheik spent a number of years training in Libya and was sent to Australia to train extremists.

Akerman writes the report was shelved and the agent who sent it believes that a campaign was waged against its contents.

Ansar al-Islam is a Kurdish Islamic terror group, reportedly started by the Muslim Brotherhood; and if Hilaly is linked to the assassination of Sadat, that’s another Muslim Brotherhood connection.

It’s all part of The Project.