Qatar and Turkey support for Brotherhood ‘promotes division in Muslim communities’
Support for the Muslim Brotherhood from Qatar and Turkey has promoted divisions within Muslim communities, a retired British army commander has told the House of Commons.
European states, including the UK, had suffered as Muslim Brotherhood groups undermined social harmony programmes such as the Prevent anti-radicalisation effort, Col Tim Collins said.
Col Collins told of payments of more than €125 million (Dh547.7m) across Europe from Qatar to institutions that were strongly influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Included in this was more than €18m that went to departments at Oxford University, including a body led by Tariq Ramadan, the grandson of the Muslim Brotherhood founder.
Security sources expressed further concerns over figures involved in mosques that had attracted millions in donations from Sheikh Hamad, the retired emir of Qatar.
Boris Johnson, the British foreign secretary, was questioned about some of the concerns raised by Col Collins yesterday and told the house that officials were subjecting the group to greater scrutiny.
“In addition to looking at visa applications, we are also looking harder at its engagement in charities in this country,” Mr Johnson said.
Col Collins said: “It’s unacceptable and discordant. I would urge the government of Qatar to end funding of Muslim Brotherhood as an act of friendship.”
The Brotherhood was diverse but harboured an instinct for subterfuge and pursued hidden agendas.
“It is a nebulous thing,” Col Collins said. “It is hard to pin down, it’s almost a franchise, it’s almost like ISIL itself. It’s insidious. It’s permitted to lie.
“The threat of militant Islam is a threat to the civilised world. We have an invisible defence in our country which is our Muslim citizens, and yet there is an organisation that would subvert these citizens.”
The British government conducted a wide-ranging inquiry into the Muslim Brotherhood, culminating in an unpublished 2015 report.
The recommendations of its author, former ambassador to Saudi Arabia Sir John Jenkins, were not taken up by then prime minister David Cameron’s government.
“It’s regrettable that based on Sir John’s findings that much less has been done,” Col Collins said. “Its harmful ideology should be contained.”
Col Collins gained fame after a British newspaper reprinted the 2003 speech he made on the eve of battle as troops under his command prepared to enter Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein.
The chairman of security company New Century Consulting, he has also pursued a writing career and is an occasional columnist.