State Department Outreach to Terror Groups

Mon, May 12, 2008 at 9:57:56 pm PST

Here’s one of those stories that might make you think you’re having a waking nightmare: State Department’s Jihadist Exchange Program.

State Department diplomats are taking full advantage of their new rules prohibiting the use of “jihad,” “jihadist,” and “mujahedeen” to describe Islamic extremists and terrorists, which they apparently have taken to mean that there are no jihadists in light of the exchange programs they have recently sponsored for the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT) — an organization currently under active federal grand jury investigation for terrorist support activities. [HT: Global MB Daily Report]

The IIIT exchange programs have been conducted under the State Department’s International Visitor’s Program. According to reports published on IIIT’s website, the State Department sponsored a March 7 visit to IIIT by a group of Chinese scholars and, more recently, an April 17-18 session with a large delegation of Islamic scholars from the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia.

The State Department has sponsored these IIIT activities at the very same time that a federal grand jury continues to look into IIIT’s multiple ties to terrorism as part of the Department of Justice’s ongoing Operation Green Quest investigation. A March 24 article in the New York Sun, “A Court Sheds New Light on Terror Probe,” identifies IIIT as the “group at the center of the probe.”