The Muslim Brotherhood in Luxembourg

Gary Fouse

fousesquawk

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com

This article is the latest in a series regarding the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe-country by country- which are translated from the original. The below article was written by Yoan Kaufman in Mediapart and is dated June 14, 2018. It describes the MB's use of Luxembourg as a financial center. It was written in French and is translated by Fousesquawk.

https://blogs.mediapart.fr/yoan-kaufman/blog/140618/enquete-luxembourg-le-paradis-fiscal-des-freres-musulmans


Investigation: Luxembourg, the fiscal paradise of the Muslim Brotherhood?
14 June 2018 by Yoan Kaufman  Blog: The Blog of Yoan Kaufman

If Switzerland is known to have been a rear base of the Muslim Brotherhood, on the other hand, Luxembourg has long been ignored. However, historically, the Grand Duchy has played a central role in the financial strategy of this organization.


"In the name of God. The Islamic bank of Luxembourg"
-Mediapart

Luxembourg has become one of the strongholds of worldwide Islamic finance, and its authorities boast about it: "As the second largest world center for funds and host of the world's principal stock exchange for stock securities, Luxembourg is today a key center  for the development of Islamic finance in Europe," states Tom Theobald, Luxembourg's deputy director general for Finance at the end of 2017.   

It is true that the publicity and lobbying carried out around this "Islamic finance" lends credence that this "finance" would be cleaner, more ethical because it is religious! In the name of God, is it less neo-liberal or less opaque? Nay. Such affirmations are absurd at best and at worst deceiving.

But in reality, the valuation of this so-called new market quite simply, hides the financial infiltration strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood and certain Gulf countries.

A project built for over 40 years....

In 2005, the Swiss journalist, Sylvain Besson, published a remarkable work: "The conquest of the West", which everyone unfortunately forgot and would be good to update.

In this book, the investigator-journalist recalls that after the attacks on 11 September, the Swiss police conducted a search at the home of Youssef Nada, chairman of a group named al-Taqwa, which was suspected of having financed al-Qaeda. In Nada's house, the police seized an exceptional document, (which) had to do with "Project" of the Muslim Brotherhood written in 1981. This document established the global strategy of the Brotherhood and more specifically, that which was envisioned for Europe.

During a second search of the offices of al-Taqwa, investigators found another document fascinatingly named "Financial Strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood".

This edifying text details the financial structures created by the leaders of the Brotherhood during the 1970s, thanks to funds principally coming from the Gulf countries.

The central position of Luxembourg is clearly exposed in the first pages. "The Islamic International Bank of Luxembourg is the principal entity  that directs and controls all other institutions. ARINCO, an affiliated entity manages the long term investments." And here we are!

A booming business...

These structures have been used to clandestinely finance Islamic centers of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe and the US in order to, as Sylvain Besson writes, "extend the sphere of Islam and put an end to the hegemony of the West on the world." 

One of the figures who has long held the keys to Islamic finance in Luxembourg is named Gamal Attia, of Egyptian origin and an influential member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He notably founded the Islamic Development bank of Jedda and was, not incidentally, a close (associate) of Youssef Nada....

Gamal Attia himself has been a consultant-expert for the UN during the 1980s. He is also considered with his compatriot, Abou Saud, as the father of Islamic finance

 If ARINCO was dissolved in 1989 and the International Islamic Bank of Luxembourg in 1994, that, of course, doesn't mean that the business has disappeared, quite the contrary.

The Brothers have only reorganized themselves and enlarged their influence in financial circles, to the point that Islamic finance has become a trend phenomenon, which gains more terrain each day....

As the next article will reveal, the structures affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood still use Luxembourg as a fiscal paradise to protect their war chest. A mysterious financial fund which I was able to identify holds amounts in excess of 150 million euros.

To follow

The Muslim Brotherhood in the Netherlands

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com


The below article in AD.NL appeared in February and concerns the testimony of a Dutch terrorism expert before the Dutch Parliament. The expert, Ronald Sandee, identified mosques and individuals in the Netherlands as having connections to the Muslim Brotherhood as well as having received funding from Kuwait and Qatar. Translation by Fousesquawk.


https://www.ad.nl/politiek/moskeeen-in-rotterdam-en-amsterdam-in-de-greep-van-conservatieve-moslimbroeders~a3966d2a/

"Mosques in Rotterdam and Amsterdam in the grip of conservative Muslim Brothers"

The Rotterdam mosque De Middenweg and the Amsterdam Blue Mosque are in the grip of the Muslim Brothers. (Brotherhood). The message from the terror expert and investigator Ronald Sandee on Monday during his testimony in the mini-case in the Second Chamber (Parliament) on unwanted foreign influence in Islamic institutions.

Although both steadfastly deny it, Sandee named Chairman of the Board Jacob van der Blom and imam Yassin Elforkani of the Blue Mosque as Muslim Brothers (members of Muslim Brotherhood). Van der Blom is also founder of the De Middenweg (mosque).

Sandee has no hard evidence, but: "If it runs like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it may be a duck," Van der Blom and Elforkani  "follow the ideology" of the Muslim Brothers.

The mosque in New West, built with money from Kuwait and Qatar, played a large role in the hearing. Sandee, ex-employee of the military intelligence service, also spoke extensively about the international Muslim Brotherhood. According to him, the organization strives for a "sharia state" in which Islam leads.

Veils

The Muslim Brothers are commonly well-educated, articulate, and "anti-integration", said Sandee. According to him, they encourage women to wear veils, and hammer on "Islamophobic tendencies in society.

Sandee named the Blue Mosque as a striking example of the influence from the Gulf region. When Kuwait came in as financier around 2006, a high-ranking Kuwaiti official took over the company that owns the real estate, (and) according to Sandee, still now determines the course of the mosque. 

Sandee also said he heard talk about young converts in the Blue Mosque, who are fairly intimidating in imposing their views. "But that is only hear-say."

Middenweg

In the Blue Mosque, and also in the Middenweg (also financed by the Gulf region and with the same owner as the Blue Mosque) you see, according to Sandee, the influence of the Muslim Brothers on the speakers and training. In that connection, he also named the Essalam Mosque in Rotterdam, the largest in the Netherlands.

With respect to the money flow from the Gulf, the Netherlands is a little too naive, perhaps gullible. "I have the feeling that countries like Turkey and Qatar follow a completely conscious strategy in influencing Muslim communities abroad. But we are stuck on freedom of religion." 


He advocated for measures to limit foreign funding. He mentioned the Austrian Islam Law as an example, which contains a ban on foreign financing. Her also suggested a European ban. "That would be a possibility to come down on unwanted influence in one blow."

Real Estate

The Parliamentary Commission asked the necessary questions about Jacob van der Blom, ex-director of the Essalam Mosque, which, according to Sandee, is well connected with Qatra Charity, a prominent donor to Islamic institutions in Europe. Van der Blom has for years been director of Europe Trust Netherlands, the owner of De Middenweg and the Blue Mosque. According to Sandee, that is the real estate branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which serves as a  branch of the Birmingham-based mother company, Europe Trust. "I have the feeling that if Europe Trust in Birmingham claims the property, that will happen."

Recently, Sandee signaled a cross-pollination between the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists. "A sort of Dutch Salafism or Dutch Brotherhood".

Sandee was also asked about a detailed article that he wrote last last for an American research site, in which he swept the floor with the Amsterdam Deradicalization Policy, which, according to him, is on the leash of dubious figures. Signs about people (who are) radicalizing have been swept under the carpet, said Sandee.

Bas Soetenhorst 10-02-20, 14:49 

Bernie's Funding Dreams

Gary Fouse

fousesquawk

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com

Up until recently I have not been watching the Democrat debates. Then, last week, I watched the last hour or so of the debate in Nevada. It was then I realized that this was fun! So I made a point to sit dumbfounded through the South Carolina debate a few days ago. Now this is entertainment.

There were so many high points I can't remember them all. There was Joe Biden pounding his chest and telling everybody that 150 million people (in the US) had died by guns since 2007 and how he and Barack (Obama) stopped the Ebola virus dead in its tracks. To someone out there he pointed his finger and stated, "I'm coming for ya". And there was the classic claim (later refuted) that he had been arrested in Soweto, South Africa attempting to see Nelson Mandela in prison at Robbins Island).Tom Speyer announced that on Day One (of his presidency) he would declare a national emergency (on the Corona virus). There was Elizabeth Warren  saying she would "work with our allies and use every tool in our toolbox". Translation? She has no idea what she would do.Virtually everybody on stage devoted time to pandering to the largely African-American voting block in South Carolina.

That brings me to Bernie Sanders.

Aside from defending his proposed budgets and quibbling about how many hundreds of trillions of dollars it would cost, he also-out of the blue-announced that he was going to "provide funding for African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Native Americans to open legal marijuana dispensaries and keep them out of the hands of the big corporations."

Really?

Now Bernie Sanders is a lot of things (including being a Marxist), but I don't think he is racist. But my questions to Mr Sanders are these: How and why did you make the connection between the above three groups and selling legal marijuana? Is that all you think of their abilities? Is that your key to revitalizing the inner cities- by flooding them with marijuana?  Maybe I am missing something, but isn't this akin to Planned Parenthood having so many of its facilities in the inner cities? I'm not saying that the current directors of PP are consciously trying to reduce the black population-even though that was definitely the intent of Margaret Sanger, the founder of PP's predecessor agency.

But I digress. Back to Sanders.

Bernie Sanders may be a joke, but he is the most dangerous man on the stage. His ideas are befuddled and the opposite of what is good for this country. When you consider all his past statements about socialism, Cuba, Nicaragua, etc, you really have to wonder what's going on in that mind of his. This is a man who has defended the Castro regime in Cuba. This is a man who took his honeymoon in the former Soviet Union. This is a man who has seen the bread lines and actually defended them!
And this is the man who now promises to provide tax payer funding to minorities to open marijuana clinics (whether they want to or not I am guessing).