Contemporary Islamist activity in the United States can be understood in the context of five loose conceptual groupings:

The Ikhwan-Jama’at duopoly¹
The Ikhwan-Jama’at duopoly is the largest and most influential grouping of organized Islamist activism in the United States. In the 1950s and 1960s, Muslim Brotherhood activists fled repression in Egypt to find a home and largesse in Saudi Arabia. Wahhabi² authorities took advantage of their organizational experience, placing them in key positions at major Islamic quasi-NGOs. With Saudi backing, these Brotherhood activists, joined by Jama’at-e Islami³ cadres, propagated Islamist thought and institutions all over the world, including the United States and the larger West.⁴

The structure of the U.S.-based Ikhwan-Jama’at duopoly can be understood on three levels – a covert vanguard, professional activist organizations with formalized membership schemes, and the related grassroots they seek to mobilize. The vanguard consists of Brotherhood and Jama’at leaders in North America who hold key leadership positions in a series of activist organizations. These activist organizations are the most prominent Islamic groups in American civil society. They are influential in local, state, and national politics and have established relationships with editorial boards and news producers at media outlets throughout the country. The fact that they are linked to the Brotherhood and Jama’at-Islami is not commonly known, even though this information is readily available. This can perhaps be attributed to pervasive political correctness about matters concerning religion and ethnicity as well as a related lack of interest from mainstream and credible media outlets.

Internal U.S. Brotherhood records released as evidence in the terrorism financing trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) reveal that a covert vanguard of Muslim Brotherhood activists founded and directed the most influential Muslim-American civil society groups in the United States, including the Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim American Society (MAS).⁵  The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) similarly is a “front” for Jama’at-i-Islami.⁶  The public faces of these groups are professionally-led activist organizations concerned with civil rights, religious education, political awareness, grass-roots organization, and other seemingly benign activities.⁷  However, internal Brotherhood documents reveal another side to these organizations.

The strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West is carried out largely through front groups coordinated by the covert Brotherhood vanguard. In an effort to establish Islamic governance, the Brotherhood seeks to manipulate and subvert local power structures by positioning themselves as the gatekeepers to the Muslim community, infiltrating civil society and state structures, and creating parallel ones. In practice, this involves establishing close contacts with editorial boards of newspapers; news producers; prominent journalists; government, law enforcement, defense, and intelligence officials; prominent academics; civil society groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union; and others.

An internal document of the Muslim Brotherhood network in the U.S. states that “the main goal of Islamic activism” is: “establishing the nation of Islam, the rule of God in the lives of humans, making people worship their Creator and cleansing the earth from the tyrants who assault God’s sovereignty, the abominators in His earth and the suppressors of His creation.”⁸  Brotherhood officials have done so by promoting the creation of civic organizations with a covert – and occasionally an overt – political agenda, an activity described by one Brotherhood official in the 1980s as “energizing political work fronts.”⁹  Such groups include:

The Muslim Student Association (MSA): Founded in 1963 by Brotherhood activists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the MSA served as a coordinating committee for Brotherhood activities during the organization’s formative years in the United States. During this early era, all Brotherhood activists in the U.S. had to be active in the MSA.¹⁰  Now a national organization, the MSA has about 150 affiliated university chapters in the United States and Canada. In the U.S., the MSA is divided into East Zone, Central Zone, and West Zone. It is a 501(c)4 tax exempt organization, and claims to refuse foreign funding.¹¹

Like all member organizations of the Ikhwan-Jama’at duopoly, the MSA proclaims “moderation,” but public statements by MSA activists reveal an Islamist agenda and ideology. For instance, MSA officials have espoused the desire “to restore Islam to the leadership of society” and to be working toward “the reestablishment of the Islamic form of government.”¹²  They have likewise emphasized the importance of dawah (propagation of faith) as a vehicle for the spread of Islam in the United States, with the ultimate goal of making America “a Muslim country.”¹³

The North American Islamic Trust (NAIT): NAIT was founded in 1973 as a waqf (trust) for the MSA and other Islamic institutions, including the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).¹⁴  NAIT is a non-profit 501(c)3 and holds the titles to hundreds of Islamic institutions – including mosques and schools – across the U.S., making it – according to some analysts – a holding company and financial hub for various Muslim Brotherhood-tied groups in North America.¹⁵  It also manages the Iman Fund, a no-load mutual fund, and runs American Trust Publications (which publishes Islamic literature, including the works of Brotherhood luminary Yusuf al Qaradawi¹⁶ ) and the Islamic Book Service.¹⁷  A 1987 FBI investigation of NAIT concluded that the organization supported the “Islamic Revolution.” “Their support of JIHAD (a holy war) in the U.S. has been evidenced by the financial and organizational support provided through NAIT from Middle East countries to Muslims residing in the U.S. and Canada,” it continued. The countries named as providing this support were Iran, Libya, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. “The organizational support provided by NAIT includes planning, organizing, and funding anti-U.S. and anti-Israel demonstrations, pro-PLO demonstrations and the distribution of political propaganda against U.S. policies in the Middle East and in support of the Islamic Revolution as advocated by the [Government of Iran]. NAIT also supports the recruitment, training and funding of black Muslims in the U.S. who support the Islamic Revolution.”¹⁸

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA): ISNA, which emerged out of the MSA in 1981, was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Hamas financing trial against the Holy Land Foundation.¹⁹  Like NAIT, ISNA is included among the “individuals/entities who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood.”²⁰ 

There is no evidence that ISNA currently provides material support to terrorist organizations. However, to this day, key U.S. Brotherhood activists hold leadership positions in ISNA. ISNA’s twenty-two member board of directors includes the chairman of NAIT, the president of the MSA, and the heads of ISNA’s other “constituent organizations:” the Association of Muslim Scientists and Engineers, the Islamic Medical Association of North America, the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS), the Canadian Islamic Trust, Muslim Youth of North America, the Council of Islamic Schools of North America, and the Islamic Media Foundation – some of which are explicitly named as Brotherhood-allied groups in internal Brotherhood documents.²¹

The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA): ICNA is the successor to the Pakistani-American organization Halaqa Ahbabe Islami, which sought to recruit “Islamic movement oriented Urdu speaking Muslims and to strengthen the Jama’at-e-Islami Pakistan.”²²  In 1977, Halaqa Ahbabe Islami formally changed its name to ICNA.²³  Today, ICNA holds conferences throughout the U.S. and states that its goal is “to seek the pleasure of Allah… through the struggle of Iqamat-ud-Deen (establishment of the Islamic system of life) as spelled out in the Qur’an and the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad...”²⁴

ICNA has three separate wings: the ICNA Sisters Wing, Young Muslims Sisters and Young Muslims Brothers.²⁵  It also runs the New York-based Islamic Learning Foundation, which is aimed at “enriching the lives of Muslims in general and Muslim Youth in particular by educating their minds and affecting their hearts with sound knowledge of Islamic Shariah.”²⁶  Notably, these steps are in keeping with the strategy of Abdul A’la Maududi, the founder of Jama’at-e-Islami. In his book The Process of Islamic Revolution, Maududi calls for indoctrinated Islamic cadres as a foundation for revolution. To Maududi, the Islamic state begins with good Muslims, who would in turn create a “system of education to train and mould the masses in the Islamic pattern of life.”²⁷

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR): The idea for CAIR emerged out of a 1993 meeting in Philadelphia of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee in the United States. Participants spoke of the need for a lobbying and public affairs group to promote the Islamist point of view in the U.S. The short-term goal was to serve as a spoiler for the Oslo Accords, but the long-term goal was to manipulate the public discourse in America on issues related to Islam and the Muslim world.²⁸  Three IAP officials founded CAIR several months later. CAIR portrays itself as a civil rights group, and has since become the most influential and pervasive Muslim civil society group in the United States.²⁹  They have been heavily involved in “sensitivity training” and other briefings on Islam and the Muslim community for U.S. law enforcement officers. However, in the last two years, CAIR has been increasingly challenged, largely as a result of the HLF case, in which it was named an unindicted co-conspirator.³⁰  CAIR is currently led by a five-person board.³¹

The Muslim American Society (MAS): The Northern Virginia-based MAS was founded in 1993. Among its founding members was Ahmed Elkadi, who supposedly led the Brotherhood in the U.S. from 1984 to 1994.³²  Mohammad Mehdi Akef, the Supreme Guide of the global Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt from 2004 to 2010, claims to have played a role in founding MAS in a push for more “openness” in the Brotherhood’s activities in the U.S.³³  MAS is open about its lineage in the U.S., lauding older Brotherhood-affiliated groups such as MSA, ISNA, and NAIT.³⁴ 

MAS claims to promote understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims, “encourage the participation of Muslims in building a virtuous and moral society,” “offer a viable Islamic alternative to many of our society’s prevailing problems,” and “foster unity among Muslims and Muslim organizations.”³⁵  The MAS Freedom Foundation is perhaps the most active and public part of the organization. It engages in and coordinates grassroots activism, including voter registration, civil rights work, lobbying Congress, and protesting.³⁶  Other departments include the Council of Imams (coordinated with ICNA), the National Council of Islamic Centers (also coordinated with ICNA), the Tarbiyya (religious educational) program, the dawah (propagation) program, Islamic American University, and the Muslim Youth Program.³⁷   Yusuf al-Qaradawi, often referred to as the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, is on the Islamic American University’s Board of Trustees.³⁸

The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT): Conceived at a 1977 Islamic conference in Lugano, Switzerland, IIIT was founded four years later in Pennsylvania as “a private, non-profit, academic and cultural institution dedicated to promoting research, publications and conferences related to Islamic thought and contemporary social sciences.”³⁹   It is now based in Herndon, Virginia. IIIT ostensibly “promotes academic research on the methodology and philosophy of various disciplines, and gives special emphasis to the development of Islamic scholarship in contemporary social sciences.”⁴⁰  However, IIIT has been accused by the U.S. government of contributing funds to the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), which was founded to support the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.⁴¹  IIIT is a part of a network of companies and not-for-profit organizations based in Northern Virginia known as the SAAR Network or the Safa Group, which has been under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department since at least 2003.⁴²  In May 2009, Ishaq Farhan, a trustee of IIIT, was chosen to head the Islamic Action Front – the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood political party – a post he had held before.⁴³  Farhan had long been associated with the IAF and is said to be one of the key figures behind its formation.⁴⁴ 

Jamaat al Fuqra
Jama’at al Fuqra (JF, Arabic for “Community of the Impoverished”) was founded in New York in 1980 by the Pakistani religious leader, Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani.⁴⁵  JF has been described as a splinter group of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM).⁴⁶  Daniel Pearl, the late Wall Street Journal reporter, was on his way to interview Gilani in 2002 when he was kidnapped in Pakistan and subsequently beheaded.

In the U.S., JF is a loosely structured movement primarily composed of African-American converts to Islam. JF functions officially through Muslims of the Americas, a non-profit organization, and the International Quranic Open University.⁴⁷  JF also operates a news publication called The Islamic Post. JF runs a network of rural compounds in New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Oregon, South Carolina, California and Colorado. Members of the group were involved in a wave of violent crime and fraud – including murder and arson – in the 1980s and 1990s.⁴⁸  Some members have also been known to attack Hindu places of worship.⁴⁹  Over the past decade, the group has been fairly quiet in the U.S. It received some attention in 2008 and 2009 as a result of a documentary on the group produced by the controversial Christian Action Network entitled Homegrown Jihad.⁵⁰ 

Hizb ut-Tahrir
Hizb ut-Tahrir in America (HTA) has been led by Middle Eastern activists who moved the U.S. in the 1980s. For most of its history, it has met with little success in expanding its native activist base. This has been attributed to competition from other Islamist groups (mainly the Brotherhood); the limited ability of an older leadership to connect with the younger generation; and a level of paranoia and secrecy among the leadership that have limited outreach efforts, hindered online interaction, and may have turned off potential recruits – particularly in the pre-9/11 era.⁵¹ 

The HTA website states that the organization’s aim is “to resume the Islamic way of life and to convey the Islamic da'wah to the world.”⁵²  HTA is currently well-networked and connected with the larger global presence of HuT. Their three-stage methodology for taking power is the same as that promoted by the global movement:

The First Stage: The stage of culturing to produce people who believe in the idea and the method of the Party, so that they form the Party group.
The Second Stage: The stage of interaction with the Ummah (global Muslim community), to let the Ummah embrace and carry Islam, so that the Ummah takes it up as its issue, and thus works to establish it in the affairs of life.
The Third Stage: The stage of establishing government, implementing Islam generally and comprehensively, and carrying it as a message to the world.⁵³

In the West, HuT seeks to foster a mass movement toward revolution, while in Muslim-majority countries it attempts to recruit members of the military for the purpose of carrying out a military coup.⁵⁴  According to one specialist, HTA “counts well-educated professionals who are influential in their communities among their members” and in recent years the group has expanded beyond their main hubs of activity in New York, Orange County (California), Chicago, and Milwaukee.⁵⁵

The jihadist-activist milieu
There are a number of small U.S.-based formal and informal groups and networks that support violent jihad in America and elsewhere, but do not necessarily engage in it themselves. Most of their activities are political and social in nature, consisting of provocative public statements and demonstrations. Two particularly prominent groups deserve mention in this regard.

 Al Muhajiroun is a Britain-based Islamist movement founded in 1996 by former HuT activist Omar Bakri Mohammad. The Islamic Thinkers Society, or ITS, is the New York-based U.S. branch of al Muhajiroun. The organization’s objective is “to resume the Islamic way of life which will fulfil the purpose of the aim... to bring back the apparatus that was destroyed in 1924, i.e. Khilafah.”⁵⁶  Like HuT, al-Muhajuroun is opposed to democracy, free-market capitalism, and secular governance. However, al-Muhajiroun’s ideology differs from HuT’s on a few crucial issues. The latter limits its efforts to establish the Caliphate to select countries where it believes it will be more successful. Al-Muhajiroun, by contrast, insists that Muslims everywhere should strive to establish the Caliphate wherever they live. Al-Muhajiroun also prescribes a more aggressive public approach through demonstrations, marches, and public outreach, while HuT is more insular.⁵⁷

ITS’s activities primarily consist of aggressive pamphleteering and provocative demonstrations in which they call for the implementation of Islamic law globally – including in the United States – and condemn those they view as enemies of Islam. They also condemn Islamic scholars who do not conform to their interpretation of Islam.⁵⁸  According to a report by New York Police Department, ITS is largely made up of 2nd and 3rd generation young Muslim-Americans of South Asian and Middle Eastern background. The report describes ITS and likeminded groups as “indoctrination accelerants due to their ability to act as both incubators and proliferators of radicalization.”⁵⁹  ITS’ methodology largely promotes non-violent means for change, such as conferences, lectures, demonstrations, marches, rallies, and strikes; however, it also calls for “the physical action of the Muslims in the army who had pledged their support beforehand... and the authority to Muslims to appoint a leader... to implement the whole of Islam immediately, comprehensively, and exclusively.”⁶⁰

Revolution Muslim is another New York-based jihadist-activist group. Founded in 2007 “to invite people to proper Islam... and command the good... while forbidding the falsehood,” RM’s mission “is to one day see the Muslims united under one Khalifah and under the commands of Allah.”⁶¹  RM sometimes cooperates with ITS.

RM maintains an active blog and website, which serves as a forum for a dissemination of its views, proselytization, condemnation of U.S. policies, and even support for violence. For example, RM has expressed admiration for Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who was responsible for the shooting at Fort Hood (see below), and called his victims “slain terrorists.”⁶²  According to the Anti-Defamation League, RM’s non-virtual activities primarily consist of pamphleteering and demonstrating outside mosques on Fridays.⁶³ 

Homegrown jihadist cells and networks
There were a number of Islamist terrorist plots in the U.S. that were thwarted or uncovered in 2009, many of which were planned by cells of Muslims who were either born in the U.S. or lived there for many years. There were also episodes of Americans planning attacks against U.S. interests abroad and/or going to fight with foreign Islamist movements. These included:

• Five American citizens of Middle Eastern and African origin who travelled from their homes in Virginia to Pakistan.  They reportedly were trying to get to North Waziristan in order to train with al-Qaeda and the Taliban and then fight American troops in Afghanistan.  The 'Sargodha five' were arrested in Pakistan.⁶⁴
• Daniel P. Boyd, an American convert to Islam, has been accused of heading a seven-man North Carolina-based cell that allegedly planned to provide material support to al-Qaeda, murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons in Israel and elsewhere, and kill U.S. military personnel stationed at Quantico, Virginia.⁶⁵
• In May 2009, James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams, and Laguerre Payen were arrested in New York and charged with conspiring to bomb synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military aircraft at the New York Air National Guard Base at Stewart Airport in Newburgh, New York with a surface-to-air missile.⁶⁶
• Tarek Mehanna and Ahmad Abousamra of Massachusetts were arrested and charged with conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaeda.⁶⁷  The two are accused of aspiring to launch attacks in the U.S., including on a local shopping mall.⁶⁸  According to the superseding indictment, Mehanna and Abousamra went to Yemen to receive militant training in order to fight U.S. troops in Iraq. As of 2006, Mehanna allegedly saw himself as part of the “media wing” of al-Qaeda in Iraq.⁶⁹ 
• David Coleman Headley (AKA Daood Gilani) of Chicago has been charged with providing crucial assistance for the 2008 Laskhar-e-Taiba (LeT) attack in Mumbai, India. Headley allegedly attended LeT training camps in 2002 and 2003. Beginning in 2006, Headley allegedly carried out extensive surveillance of possible targets in Mumbai on behalf of LeT. He is charged with aiding and abetting the murders of six U.S. citizens who were killed in the Mumbai attack. Headley is also accused of conspiring with LeT members and Ilyas Kashmiri, the head of the Kashmiri militant group Harakat ul Jihad al Islami (HUJI), to carry out attacks in Denmark against Jyllands Posten, the newspaper that published the Mohammad cartoons that led to the 2006 Danish Cartoons Crisis. Headley allegedly carried out surveillance in Denmark for that planned attack.⁷⁰ 
• Najibullah Zazi, who drove an airport shuttle bus in Denver, and, before that, lived in Queens, has been accused of conspiring to use explosives in an attack thought to have been planned for New York City.  Zazi was born in Afghanistan and raised in Pakistan.  Zazi is thought to have travelled to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan where he received training from al-Qaeda.⁷¹
• Bryant Neal Vinas, an American convert to Islam, who has been charged with participating in and supporting terrorist attacks against U.S. persons and facilities in Afghanistan in 2008. He is accused of firing rockets at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan and providing “expert advice and assistance” to al-Qaeda about the New York transit system and Long Island Railroad.⁷²
• Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a Jordanian national, is charged with planning to blow up the Fountain Place office complex in downtown Dallas with a vehicle bomb. He also reportedly considered attacking a National Guard Armory and the Dallas Airport.⁷³
• Michael Finton (AKA Talib Islam), an American who converted to Islam while in prison, has been charged with planning to detonate a van filled with explosives outside the Federal Building in Springfield, Illinois. He also reportedly considered going to fight in Afghanistan, Somalia, and Pakistan, but had reservations about al-Qaeda’s targeting of civilians.⁷⁴ 
• On Christmas day, a young Nigerian man tied to al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula tried and failed to set off an explosive device on a transatlantic airline flight as it was landing in Detroit.⁷⁵

There was also a “lone wolf” Islamist terrorist attack launched at Fort Hood, Texas on November 5th by Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. Army psychiatrist, who had been in regular contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born imam of Yemeni descent currently residing in Yemen. Hasan opened fire on base, killing thirteen people and wounding 31 others. Hasan was shot multiple times, but survived.⁷⁶ 

The U.S. has the most diverse Muslim population in the Western world – indeed, maybe in the entire world. Half of America’s estimated 2 to 3 million Muslims identify themselves as Sunnis, 16 percent as Shi'a, and 22 percent say they are just Muslim without affiliation. Twenty-three percent are converts.⁷⁷  A large proportion of Muslims in the U.S. are immigrants (65 percent), and slightly over a third are native-born, with one-fifth of them second generation.⁷⁸  A third of Muslim immigrants to the United States come from the Arab world (Middle East and North Africa), 27 percent from South Asia (including Afghanistan), 12 percent come from Iran, eight percent come from Europe, and six percent come from Africa (not including North Africa). Almost two-thirds of all Muslim immigrants have come to the U.S. since 1990 and 28 percent have come since 2000. Three-quarters of all Muslim-Americans are U.S. citizens.⁷⁹  At 35 percent, African-Americans make up the largest proportion of Muslims in America.⁸⁰  Muslims in America, as a group, are younger than other major religious groups in the U.S.⁸¹

The extent to which Muslim-Americans support U.S. Islamist organizations and movements is unclear and contentious. It does seem evident that support for al-Qaeda remains low, but significant enough. While only one percent of Muslim Americans expressed a very favorable view of al-Qaeda and four percent expressed a favorable view, that still means 25,000 and 100,000 people respectively (assuming a Muslim-American population of 2.5 million). As far as support for other Islamist groups is concerned, no reliable polling or studies have been carried out. While information on the membership levels of some groups – particularly CAIR – has made it into the public domain, some of it must be viewed with scepticism given the nature of the sources. Claims of foreign funding for Ikwhan-Jama’at groups are pervasive. While there are some examples of such funding available in the public domain, there has not been a comprehensive investigation or account of this issue that has been made public.

Nor are civil society, media institutions, and the public at large generally informed about Islamist groups in the U.S. and Islamism generally, beyond the occasional terrorist plots that are routinely disrupted every year. 2009 was no different in terms of limited public and media interest in the subject, although the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Delta-Northwest airliner as it landed in Detroit reinvigorated public interest in terrorism against the U.S. homeland and kicked off renewed debate about intelligence coordination and airline security. 

The fact that the most influential and well-resourced Muslim-American civil society groups are, in a very concrete sense, affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and Jama’at-e-Islami is not widely held knowledge. While “anti-Islamist” groups do exist – mostly on the right side of the American political spectrum – their efforts to call attention to U.S. networks tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and Jama’at-e-Islami have not gained much traction, and are often dismissed, particularly on the left, as “Islamophobic” in nature. This is partially because Islamist organizations have successfully framed themselves as “moderate,” “mainstream,” and representative American Muslim religious and civil rights organizations. This has allowed them to avoid widespread public distrust and frame criticism of them as “Islamophobia” targeting the Muslim-American community rather than criticism of the organizations themselves.

However, 2009 brought with it a significant victory for anti-Islamist groups. As a result of the revelations of the Hamas-financing trials against the Holy Land Foundation and the ensuing pressures from the aforementioned anti-Islamist groups and some members of the House and Senate, the FBI has ceased cooperation with CAIR.⁸²  Despite this step forward, it seems that ISNA is among those groups that have seen their influence increase as they step into the vacuum left by CAIR and assume a larger role in advising and training U.S. government and military officials.⁸³

The relationship between the state and Islamist groups can only be described as schizophrenic. There does not seem to be any detailed U.S. government policy on choosing appropriate partners in the Muslim community. As a result, we have seen parts of the U.S. government working with Islamist groups for community outreach and security service recruitment while other parts of the government – often in the same executive department – have investigated and prosecuted the same groups for a wide variety of suspected criminal activity, including financial crimes and material support of proscribed terrorist organizations.

In December 2009, Daniel Benjamin, the State Department’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism, announced a planned policy called Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) that seems, at least at this nascent stage, to share some similarities with Britain’s Preventing Violent Extremism strategy. This policy was not articulated in any detailed way prior to the end of 2009, but Benjamin explained that CVE would “focus on local communities most prone to radicalization,” “address underlying conditions for at-risk populations,” and “improve the ability of moderates to voice their views and strengthen opposition to violence.” Benjamin likewise explained that “a tailored-approach to CVE requires identifying which of these problems are driving radicalization and are amenable to change with the help of local governments and leaders who understand the problems best."⁸⁴  It should be noted, however, that in Britain, the implementation of such an approach has empowered local authorities and funded various Muslim community organizations – including many Islamist and Salafist organizations – to engage with Muslim youth.