CAIR says 2nd ‘spy’ for anti-muslim group has come forward

One week after the executive director of the Council on American-islamic Relations’ Ohio chapter in Hilliard was fired for spying on the organization for an anti-muslim group, the national office of CAIR announced Tuesday via its Twitter account that a second “spy” had been identified.

The unnamed second person that CAIR said was spying on the organization and American Muslims came forward voluntarily. While the individual did not work for the nonprofit, he was an active volunteer in a large mosque and was invited to national meetings and events, the tweet said.

CAIR gave no more details on the second person’s identity, but did say that they were not anywhere in Ohio.

This news comes on the heels of Romin Iqbal, former executive director of CAIR-OHIO, being exposed for having spied for the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) since at least 2008. Iqbal, 45, worked in the Hilliard office of the Muslim social services and advocacy group and oversaw the group’s operations in Columbus and Cincinnati.

Steven Emerson, the founder on the anti-muslim IPT, paid the second individual $3,000 per month to record prominent Muslim leaders, CAIR’S tweet said. During the four years he worked for Emerson, the man was paid more than $100,000 by IPT, according to CAIR.

“One of Emerson’s goals, we’re told, was protecting the Israeli govt (sic) by undermining Muslims engaged in political & human rights activism,” the tweets read.

A phone call for comment to IPT on Tuesday evening was not immediately returned.

When contacted last week via email about Iqbal, IPT released a statement that said, in part: “While the Investigative Project on Terrorism has never and will never monitor the wider American Muslim community, it will not hesitate to uncover and publicly expose radical Islamist activity on American soil by groups like CAIR, which threaten our national security.”

Amina Barhumi, acting executive director for CAIR-OHIO, acknowledged Wednesday the uncertainty people are feeling about Iqbal and the second person who was spying on CAIR.

“This egregious act is one that has come close to home, but it’s not the first. We hope it’s the last but we don’t think it will be because these attempts have happened before to other civil rights organizations,” Barhumi said.

She said the name of the second person will be released in the next few days.

“This is not just about one person. This is not about one betrayal, but this is part of attempted efforts that are much broader,” she said. “(It’s) people who want to spread lies and misinformation about Muslims.”

CAIR said it’s gathering and vetting more information from the person who came forward. CAIR is also letting leaders and organizations he targeted know what he has done and will publicly release his name when that is completed, the tweets said.

The man went to the leaders of his mosque and confessed before telling CAIR, they said. He asked for forgiveness and said he would cooperate, the Twitter thread said.

CAIR advised any other people who helped IPT or other hate groups to do the same.

CAIR announced in a press conference on Dec. 16, two days after the news about Iqbal came out, that it received information in 2020 about moles in different Muslim groups.

Iqbal was identified through investigations after the information was given to CAIR, and he had been recording meetings with national CAIR leaders, sharing emails and strategic plans with IPT for years, CAIR said.

IPT is based in Washington, D.C. and calls itself a nonprofit research group with a mission to “expose the activities of terrorist networks and supporters in the U.S. and abroad and to educate the public about this threat.”

CAIR previously said it discovered there were a total of three IPT moles, including Iqbal, in different Muslim organizations, but no others within CAIR itself. dking@dispatch.com @Danaeking