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Title: August 2, 2025

Middle East Forum Report on DHS support for Terror Organizations

The Middle East Forum just released a report documenting $25 million in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding that went to terror-supporting groups associated with Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

This Middle East Forum (MEF) report analyzes Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grants awarded to terror-linked and extremist organizations. According to this study, DHS authorized over $25 million between 2013 and 2023 to radical groups, many with documented links to foreign terrorist organizations. The funding was distributed through three DHS spending programs, with the majority originating from the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA). Based on this review, DHS grant beneficiaries seemingly share a common ideological heritage with groups like the Taliban, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Hamas, and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The DHS grants that are the focus of this study were intended for nonprofit security, disaster relief, and countering violent extremism programs. These grants were awarded to mosques, Islamic schools, charities, civil rights nonprofits, and political advocacy groups. According to this study, an alarming number of these Islamic institutions display signs of religious extremism, with many linked to international terrorist groups, Islamist regimes, and foreign extremist movements.

Key Findings:

• Between 2013 and 2023, DHS allocated a total of $25,070,511.74 was allocated to organizations identified as having ideological links to Islamist sects and foreign extremist movements.

• Grants were issued to groups connected to the Muslim Brotherhood Hezbollah

(https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hezbollah-question-hangs-over-lebanese-voting-us), Jamaat-e-Islami (https://www.meforum.org/islamist-watch/catalogue-of-icna-links-to-jamaat-e-islami), the Nation of Islam, (https://thenationsmosque.org/about/) and the Islamic Republic of Iran (https://www.state.gov/state-sponsors-of-terrorism/). DHS grants funded organizations whose leaders have expressed antisemitic views, support for terrorist groups, and calls for violence against the West and Israel. Several recipients, such as Dar al-Hijrah and the Islamic Center of San Diego, have documented histories of hosting terrorists (https://www.kpbs.org/news/midday-edition/2011/09/06/retracing-story-911-hijackers-san-diego), including 9/11 hijackers (https://ctc.westpoint.edu/anwar-al-awlaqi-profile-of-a-jihadi-radicalizer/).

• DHS allocated $750,000 to mosques suspected of operating on behalf of the Islamic Republic of Iran or its proxies, including the Islamic Center of America (https://www.memri.org/jttm/islamic-center-america-held-memorial-service-hizbullah-operative) and the Islamic House of Wisdom (https://www.memri.org/reports/dearborn-heights-michigan-islamic-scholar-hussain-al-nashed-says-irans-islamic-revolution) near Detroit, Michigan, and the Islamic Ahlul Bayt Association (https://www.meforum.org/fwi/fwi-research/texas-state-government-gives-13-million-to-islamist-mosques-and-community-groups#islamic-ahlul-bayt-association-2) in Austin, Texas. Iran faces strict sanctions as a U.S.-designated state sponsor of terrorism, raising serious concerns over the funding of potential foreign-controlled religious institutions.

• The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) Relief received the largest appropriations, totaling $10,346,248 in disaster relief funding despite its ties to Jamaat-e-Islami (https://www.meforum.org/islamist-watch/catalogue-of-icna-links-to-jamaat-e-islami), a South Asian Islamist movement involved in a 1971 genocide (https://www.aei.org/op-eds/designate-bangladeshs-jamaat-e-islami-as-a-foreign-terrorist-organization/) against secular intellectuals in Bangladesh that killed up to 3 million people. Jamaat-e-Islami’s militant wing, Hizbul Mujahideen (https://uplopen.com/reader/chapters/pdf/10.1515/9783839475478-039), is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization (https://in.usembassy.gov/state-department-terrorist-designation-hizbul-mujahideen/).

• A significant portion of DHS spending is allocated through FEMA under the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (https://www.fema.gov/grants/preparedness/nonprofit-security) (NSGP), which grants money to religious nonprofits for physical security improvements. These funds are not just available to houses of worship, which are historically vulnerable to mass shootings and hate crimes, but to extremist political advocacy groups and charities.

• DHS has allocated $3,375,266 in Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) funding to radical organizations. Islamist groups that instigate political violence through dehumanizing or supremacist rhetoric have not only received millions of dollars in DHS funding to help fight extremism; these groups helped establish and shape the government’s deradicalization program.

This study highlights serious concerns regarding the allocation of federal Homeland Security funds to terror-linked groups and extremists. While these grants were authorized for seemingly benign purposes—security, counter-extremism, and disaster relief—the beneficiaries’ ties to designated terrorist entities and violent Islamist movements raise urgent questions about oversight and accountability in DHS funding programs.

Example:

Islamic Center of San Diego

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq-tiLC31pA&t=45s)   

The Islamic Center of San Diego (ICSD) is located in the heart of Clairmont, California, and is the largest mosque (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq-tiLC31pA) in San Diego. Between 2015 and 2023, DHS appropriated (https://meforumm-my.sharepoint.com/:x:/g/personal/stanley_meforum_org/ETid4hb5EJpFohgde1JZ3O8B8II5JavAEBVO_fkHVsbyTA?e=kODOMt&wdLOR=c2ED79AD7-F8FE-428D-AE89-2AC36589D3D3) over $370,000 to ICSD in NSGP grants, including funds to help prepare for and respond to acts of terrorism. However, the San Diego mosque has a history of promoting the same extreme ideas the nonprofit security program was designed to prevent.

A 2005 study

 (https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/inline_images/Saudi%2520Publications%2520on%2520Hate%2520Ideology%2520Invade%2520American%2520Mosques.pdf) from the Center for Religious Freedom determined that ICSD was one of a handful of mosques in America found in possession of “Saudi hate ideology” materials, or a list of books and other publications identified as extremist Wahhabi literature. A congressional inquiry (https://www.archives.gov/files/declassification/iscap/pdf/2014-089-doc01.pdf) into the September 11 attacks found that the FBI believed the San Diego mosque was responsible for laundering millions of dollars in cash from Saudi Arabia to the Al Barakat Trading Company and other businesses affiliated with Osama Bin Laden.

Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two of the 9/11 hijackers who would crash American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, attended (https://www.investigativeproject.org/mosques/378/islamic-center-of-san-diego)ICSDICSD) and received assistance from fellow worshipers in obtaining Social Security cards and drivers licenses, purchasing a car, and finding local housing. The pair even accessed funds from the nephew of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed through a bank account (https://www.investigativeproject.org/mosques/378/islamic-center-of-san-diego) belonging to an administrator at ICSD.

Jehad Serwan Mostafa, the most wanted (https://holliesmckay.substack.com/p/dispatches-who-is-the-us-governments)AmericanAmerican) terrorist in the world, attended ICSD before joining Al Shabaab, where he serves as a senior official in the upper echelons of the Al-Qaeda terrorist group. Imam Taha Hassane, the head imam at ICSD since shortly after 9/11, said (https://holliesmckay.substack.com/p/dispatches-who-is-the-us-governments)hehe) was “shocked” to learn of Mostafa’s extremism.

The day after Hamas’s October 7 massacre in Israel, Hassane wrote (https://islamism.news/news/hamas-massacre-brings-out-san-diego-imams-true-colors/) in a now-deleted Instagram post: “Resistance is the only option for a people under occupation.” In an October 20 sermon (https://www.instagram.com/reel/CypRQvLLj6N/?igsh=cnBsbm13MDdqaG03), he reinforced this stance, stating, “Resistance is justified, resistance when people are occupied becomes a human right.”

Speaking at ICSD in December 2023, Taher Herzallah of the Hamas-linked (https://m.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-848086) American Muslims for Palestine called (https://www.memri.org/reports/american-muslims-palestine-official-taher-herzallah-san-diego-mosque-time-make-zionists-feel) on the congregation to make Zionists feel “very uncomfortable on campus.” He implored his audience to follow the example of Gazans on October 7.

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