Socialist-backed Michigan Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s mother worked for an organization at the time that the U.S. Treasury Department designated it a funder of terrorism, records uncovered this week reveal. The news comes as El-Sayed was already addressing reports that his mother had been an active member of the terrorist-linked, Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.
From 1999 through at least 2024, El-Sayed’s birth mother, Fatten Elkomy (aka, El-Komy), worked for a global organization called the Islamist American Relief Agency (aka, Islamist African Relief Agency), according to documents reported by The Midwesterner. IARA billed itself as a group that provided relief to the needy.
In October of 2004, however, the Treasury Department designated IARA an organization supporting terrorism that was financing terrorist groups, such as Hamas, the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden - the mastermind behind al Qaida’s 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans.
In 2007, the U.S. Justice Department charged IARA with 23 counts of illegally transferring funds to Iraq. IARA pled guilty to conspiring to violate sanctions by illegally funneling nearly $1.4 million to Iraq and agreed to shut down operations.
While Elkomy was not personally charged with a crime or named a co-conspirator, she was cited more than a dozen times in evidence used by prosecutors, ABC affiliate WCIV notes:
“In 2007, the Department of Justice charged IARA with a 33-count indictment for illegally transferring funds to Iraq. An exhibit list filed in court referenced Elkomy more than a dozen times, documenting participation in wire transfers and recorded phone calls between 1999 and 2002, as well as an IARA-USA transfer request form for over $24,000 to its Iraq office.”
Candidate Abdul El-Sayed was raised by his father, but he still has a close relationship with Elkomy, his birth mother, as The Washington Free Beacon reports:
“El-Sayed's parents divorced when he was a toddler, and while he lived with his father, who remarried a white woman from Michigan, he maintains a close relationship with his mother. El-Sayed described his mother as ‘smart, warm, [and] charismatic’ in Healing Politics. He also called her in a 2026 Mother's Day campaign video. ‘Enjoy the day, and we'll see you soon, ok?’ El-Sayed said. ‘All right. Thank you for calling,’ Elkomy responded. ‘Love you, Mama. Talk soon,’ El-Sayed signed off. Years earlier, in 2020, El-Sayed sent Abdelhadi money on the mobile payment service Venmo for ‘Mama's bday gift,’ a Free Beacon review found.”
El-Sayed also maintains ties with another controversial relative, his half-sister, radical activist and University of Chicago Professor Eman Abdelhadi, who appears to extol the murderous October 7 attack on Israel, as Fox News reports:
“University of Chicago professor Eman Abdelhadi, the half sister of Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, delivered an ‘October 7th blessing,’ one year after Hamas militants killed approximately 1,200 people in widespread terrorist attacks.”
"Abdul loves his sister and also disagrees with her on a number of political positions and the rhetoric she's chosen to use, including on foreign policy," a campaign spokeswoman told Fox News Digital when asked about the video.
A claim by El-Sayed's sister hat their mother was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1970's was forcing the Democrat Senate candidate to respond to questions about his family's ties to terrorism, even before Elkomy's work for IARA was brought to light.
While El-Sayed identifies as a Democrat, many of his policies align with those of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and he is endorsed by Democratic Socialists in Congress, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.).
