Islamic Relief accepted £60K from Al Qaeda front

Financial statements show that Islamic Relief Worldwide has received over £62,000 (nearly 100,000 U.S. dollars) from the Al Qaeda-linked, Yemen-based Charitable Society for Social Welfare (CSSW) over the past 10 years.

CSSW donated funds to Islamic Relief in 2003, 2004, 2007, and 2008, mostly for “Palestinian relief” activities.  The 2004 funds transfer was recently discovered by Stand for Peace (with a h/t to Money Jihad reader and IMED research fellow Jacob Campbell for alerting us).  A review of Islamic Relief’s annual statements by Money Jihad revealed the subsequent donations:

CSSW donations to Islamic Relief

Year	Amount given	Project
2008	£13,060	Gaza Strip Emergency
2007	£9,999	Lebanon Water and Sanitation Programme
2004	£11,265	Palestine Relief
2003	£28,100	Palestine Relief and Emergency Projects
Total	£62,424

The CSSW came under FBI surveillance in 1999.  In 2004, CSSW’s Brooklyn branch chief Numan Maflahi was convicted for obstructing the FBI investigation into the charity’s fundraising.  In 2008, the Washington Post revisited the matter, writing that “federal prosecutors in [the Maflahi] New York terrorism-financing case described the charity [CSSW] as ‘a front organization’ that was ‘used to support al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden’.”

In 2010, IntelWire revealed that the U.S. Department of Labor awarded a $3.5 million grant for a partnership that included CSSW.

CSSW has previously denied terrorist connections by claiming mistaken identity, despite evidence to the contrary from the Maflahi prosecutors and IntelWire.

Islamic Relief itself has previously been under fire for receiving $50,000 from a Bin Laden front in 1999, for financing Hamas in 2005-06, for cooperating with pro-Hamas Union of Good charities on an ongoing basis, and for its leadership being dominated by Muslim Brotherhood officials.