Yousaf first came to the public’s attention in the late 2000s while serving as an aide to former SNP leader Alex Salmond and other senior party leaders. At this time, Yousaf was also running the Scottish Islamic Foundation (SIF), along with his cousin, Osama Saeed.
In 2010, the Quilliam Foundation, a (now-defunct) Muslim-run counter-extremism organization, prepared a list for the British security officials warning that SIF was an “entry level” Islamist group that contributed to the threat of radicalization and extremism within British Islam.
Parliamentary questions have revealed that Yousaf and Saeed, through SIF, brought extremists to meet with senior Scottish politicians. In 2008, Yousaf organized a meeting with Scotland’s Minister for Europe, External Affairs and Culture, featuring three prominent Islamists: Mohammed Sawalha, Anas Altikriti and Ismail Patel.
Two years earlier, Sawalha had been named by the BBC as a fugitive Hamas commander; and indeed, Sawalha later became a member of the terror group’s political bureau. As for Anas Altikriti, he has long served as a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood in both the UK and Iraq, and in 2006 he reportedly praised Iraqi “resistance” against British and American troops in Iraq.
Ismail Patel, meanwhile, is another supporter of Hamas, and had already, at the time of the meeting, established a reputation for hardline Islamism, including advocating the killing of adulterers and punishment for “free mixing of men and women.”
Yousaf’s involvement with Scottish nationalism served the interests of SIF. In 2010, opposition parties called for an investigation into the SNP’s decision to give £400,000 of Scottish taxpayers’ money to the Islamist-run group.
Other Islamist groups continued to benefit from Yousaf’s influence over the SNP government. In 2013, Yousaf, now elected and serving as Scotland’s Minister for External Affairs and International Development, announced a £398,000 grant to Islamic Relief, one of the largest Islamist charities in the world, established by figures from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
Critics claimed more cronyism was likely at work. Before his election to the Scottish parliament, Islamic Relief had appointed Humza Yousaf as its “Media Spokesperson.”
European and Islamic governments have denounced Islamic Relief because of the anti-Semitism of its officials and its long history of close ties to Hamas and other designated terrorist groups. In 2020, the State Department warned about the “blatant and horrifying anti-Semitism and glorification of violence exhibited at the most senior levels of Islamic Relief Worldwide.”
Yousaf’s cousin and SIF colleague, Osama Saeed, is himself a notorious Islamist operative, who also once stood as SNP parliamentary candidate. In 2005, he called for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. And in 2006, Saeed voiced praise for Al Qaeda operative Anwar Al-Awlaki, writing: “Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki was originally hounded in the US because two of the 9/11 bombers happened to pray at his mosque. … He preached nothing but peace, and I pray he will be able to do so again.” Al-Awlaki later became leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, before his death in a 2011 drone strike.
The extent to which Yousaf shares his cousin’s extremism is unclear, although the two remain close.
Read more: https://islamism.news/2023/02/23/the-troubling-islamist-connections-of-scotlands-next-leader/