The U.S. government’s tactic in Dallas set a precedent because federal authorities have never formally designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. And so, while membership and support
In a rare public assertion, the U.S. government is citing an Arlington man’s association with a secretive worldwide Muslim organization as grounds to deport him, CBS-11 has learned.
In a Dallas immigration court, the government has openly argued that Syria-born Ahmed Barodi should be deported, in part, because of his membership in the Muslim Brotherhood, his participation in brotherhood sponsored guerilla training in Iraq, and for smuggling fraudulent passports for the organization.
Barodi’s attorney and his wife would not respond to the allegations.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a violent religious, political and social order whose goal is the spread of strict Islamic law throughout the world. The secret Middle-east spawned radical movement, which has expanded throughout the U.S., has birthed several violent groups in recent decades that the U.S. has formally designated terrorist organizations, among them Al Qaida, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad.
“Osama bin Ladin has been influenced by the philosophy and teaching of the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Mark Briskman, head of the Dallas chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, which has studied the organization. “They are the fountainhead…the founding ideology for everything we see in the world today, for the individuals that are attacking American troops in Iraq, for the suicide bombings in Israel and for the threats against the regimes in Egypt and Syria.”
The U.S. government’s tactic in Dallas sets a precedent because federal authorities have never formally designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. And so, membership and support to the Muslim Brotherhood is not illegal.
But the government’s willingness to penalize a reputed member for his association became evident for the first time in a Dallas immigration court during ongoing deportation proceedings against Barodi. The Arlington businessman was detained earlier this year on grounds that he entered the U.S. illegally in 1989 on a fraudulent Syrian passport. Government lawyers are countering his subsequent appeal for political asylum by citing his close admitted ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and to a top international terrorist who is believed to have masterminded the 1982 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
Specifically, according to records obtained exclusively by CBS-11 News, Barodi has acknowledged attending a 21-day “Guerrilla Warfare Training Camp” in Iraq in 1981 that was sponsored by the Muslim Brotherhood. Barodi himself provided this information when he applied for immigration status in 1989, the document states, and he included details that would add credence to the Bush administration’s longtime contention that the Iraqi government materially supported terrorist training.
“Barodi advised that the Iraqi government provided all of the training aids consisting of RPG’s (rocket propelled grenades), firearms and the facility,” the document states.
The training in Iraq was approved by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and led by a Syrian terrorist named Abu Hazem, according to the document. Hazem is the top brotherhood leader who linked to the Sadat assassination the year after Barodi’s reputed training. Barodi also told authorities that his brother, Ali Barodi, was “a high level ranking member” of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The document also states that authorities in Saudi Arabia incarcerated Barodi for seven months after catching him smuggling several false passports for the brotherhood. More recently, Barodi insisted the interpreter had not correctly translated his statements about smuggling passports “and that he never stated anything like that.”
Barodi, a 41-year-old entrepreneur in the gas station and convenience store businesses, came to the government’s attention when members of another North Texas Muslim family, according to them, overheard Barodi bragging about current terror-related activities and brotherhood ties.
Vicki Alkhatib, the American-born wife of another area Syrian and associate of Barodi, told CBS-11 she called the FBI after overhearing discussions that Barodi’s activities for the brotherhood were continuing.
“They were talking about how he had ties with Al Quaida training, how he had been kicked out of every country he had been in for fraud,” she said. “What he had been trained for through the terrorist organization was documentation fraud.”
Vicki Alkhatib’s call to the FBI sparked an investigation into brotherhood activities in North Texas continues, sources tell CBS-11. Ironically, her husband, Abdulbari Alkhatib, was then detained on immigration charges and now also faces deportation with Barodi. Alkhatib came to the U.S. on a visitor’s visa years ago and overstayed it, accumulating several felony convictions along the way, records show.
Vicki Alkhatib said she believes her husband’s willingness to help the FBI uncover terrorist connections in North Texas entitles him to a break.