Friday, Aug 18, 2017

Dubai: Former member of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Eisa Khalifa Al Suwaidi, spoke about his involvement in a secret organisation based in the UAE, working to destablise the country, in a documentary broadcast on UAE local television stations on Friday.

Al Suwaidi, who is currently serving a 10-year jail sentence here for crimes committed, said that he joined the Muslim Brotherhood in 1989 and later rose in rank to become a member of the advisory board.

He described the organisation as “highly secretive” and with many branches.

There were separate committees in charge of education, media, women’s and youth affairs, he said.

Funds largely came from membership subcriptions, donations and grants, as well as investments in property and stocks.

He said the now disbanded Al Islah group was the largest front for the group in the UAE.

In the UAE, group members targeted tribal dignitaries, businessmen and the children of senior officials.

Specifically, Al Islah spread its ideology through infiltrating the country’s education system, “in order to control the minds of the youth and draw them into their terrorist group”.

He singled out one school in particular, the Al Jazeera School, which was owned at the time by Hamad Bin Jasem, the former prime minister and foreign minister of Qatar.

Al Suwaidi said Qatari and Emirati terrorist groups would meet in his Qatar residence to coordinate their plots under the umbrella group called “Gulf Coordination”.

Then, when the ‘Arab Spring’ happened, these secret organisations became emboldened and started to be more vocal about their ideology, he said.

“They took took to social media and began to tweet uncontrollably.”

Gulf News Report

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