US writer warns of threat from Al Islah

New article in The Atlantic highlights the real danger posed to the Gulf by the Muslim Brotherhood.

ABU DHABI //International media and human-rights groups have failed to understand the threat posed by radical Islamic group Al Islah, a US journalist has said.

In an article published on Monday in The Atlantic magazine, Joseph Braude presented research on the work of Al Islah members, linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, and weighed in on the trial of 69 Emiratis.

There has been consensus in think tanks, Braude wrote, that the UAE brotherhood was peaceful, "but scrutiny of the movement's writings, video productions and social media shows otherwise".

Senior members of Al Islah fought alongside an Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, he said.

"A new group known as the Ummah Party (Hizb Al Ummah), created after the Egyptian revolution by an Al Islah co-founder, more obviously demonstrates why the Government has been so aggressive in prosecuting the movement as a whole," Braude wrote.

He said sources showed UAE, Saudi and Kuwaiti brotherhood members were using Syria to prepare for a war in the Arabian Gulf.

"While the Ummah Party also calls in its literature for peaceful rotations of power, it would seem in light of its other statements and actions that such claims are deceitful," he wrote.