Michelle Obama to Speak at Summit Sponsored by Radical Qatari Group

(WFB) First Lady Michelle Obama is in Qatar this week for a summit sponsored by a state-controlled foundation that is known for operating mosques that have welcomed extremist clerics, according to a range of sources.

Obama is in Qatar—a country under congressional scrutiny for its financing of terrorists—through the end of the week to attend the country’s World Innovation Summit for Education, an annual educational conference sponsored by the Qatar Foundation, which has been marred in controversy due to its ongoing hosting of radical clerics.

Founded and run by the former Qatari emir’s wife, Sheikha Mozah, the Qatar Foundation houses six satellite campuses owned by American universities and other Western schools at a site outside Doha known as Education City.

At its mosque there, the Foundation has welcomed multiple radical clerics in the past several months, prompting criticism from some who accuse the charity of quietly promoting terrorism.

One cleric who recently spoke at the mosque, Omar Abdelkafi, has mocked the killings of French satirical writers at Charlie Hebdo, calling the terrorist act “the sequel to the comedy film of 9/11.” Another maintained that “Jews and their helpers must be destroyed.”

The ongoing appearance of these clerics at the foundation’s mosque has raised questions about the Obama administration’s endorsement of the charity, which has strived to maintain international legitimacy. Obama is scheduled to address the foundation on Wednesday.

“The preachers hosted by this mosque feature some of the top propagators of intolerance in the Gulf,” said David Weinberg, a Gulf region analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Six American universities have satellite campuses in Education City that are apparently serviced by this mosque.

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