A newly surfaced report has tied the birth mother of Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed to an Islamic charity that the U.S. government later designated for supporting terrorism. Fatten Fathy Elkomy worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency, or IARA-USA, from 1999 until at least 2004, according to documents reviewed by The Midwesterner.
The revelation emerged as El-Sayed campaigns against Republican Mike Rogers for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat. El-Sayed, a progressive backed by Senator Bernie Sanders but who has nevertheless attempted to reject the socialist label, won the Democratic nomination earlier this month after campaigning on Medicare for All and other sweeping expansions of government.
IARA-USA presented itself as a humanitarian organization serving orphans, providing health care, and aiding disadvantaged people in conflict zones. The organization was the American office of an international network headquartered in Khartoum, Sudan, which maintained more than 40 offices around the world. Elkomy’s reported employment overlapped with years in which federal officials said parts of that network were moving money to terrorist figures and organizations.
Trending Politics reported that Elkomy worked for the organization from 1999 through at least the year of its designation. The report also emphasized that no evidence has emerged showing that she participated in terrorist financing or other criminal activity. Elkomy said in 2004 that her own work involved helping children who had lost at least one parent.
The Treasury Department designated IARA’s worldwide network and five senior officials under Executive Order 13224 on October 13th, 2004, blocking the organization’s U.S. assets and prohibiting support for its offices. Treasury said IARA had previously been affiliated with Maktab Al-Khidamat, an organization co-founded and financed by Osama bin Laden that federal officials described as a precursor to al-Qaeda. “Information available to the U.S. indicates that international offices of IARA provided direct financial support for UBL,” the department said.
Treasury further alleged that IARA, bin Laden, and Maktab Al-Khidamat commingled funds and cooperated in raising and spending money. The department said IARA joined an institute controlled by bin Laden in a program that assisted Taliban fighters and that overseas IARA branches provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to bin Laden in 1999. It separately alleged that IARA served as a conduit for money intended for Hamas-linked terrorist activity in one Western European country in the early 2000s.
The government’s proposed exhibit list in the later federal case included letters, transfer documents, and recorded calls bearing Elkomy’s name. One entry described a December 2000 IARA-USA transfer request from Elkomy concerning $24,607.34 for the organization’s Iraq office and an attached child-sponsorship ledger. Her appearance in the exhibit list documented her work for IARA-USA; it did not lead to charges against her.
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IARA-USA itself later admitted to federal crimes unrelated to any charge against Elkomy. In 2016, the organization pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, money-laundering conspiracy, and obstructing the administration of federal tax laws. The Justice Department said IARA secretly transferred $1.375 million to Iraq in violation of American sanctions, concealed the transfers from the IRS, and agreed to dissolve permanently.
Elkomy denied that IARA had terrorist connections after the government shut it down in 2004. She said the designation would cut off assistance to children who depended on the charity’s programs and described the work she had performed there. “I’ve been working there serving orphans and children with at least one deceased parent, and it breaks my heart they’re not going to get any help,” she told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.