A new report says Abdul El-Sayed's birth mother, Fatten Elkomy, worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency between 1999 and 2002, years before the U.S. Treasury Department designated the charity's international network as a supporter of terrorism. El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Michigan's U.S. Senate seat, has not been accused of any wrongdoing, and the report notes Elkomy was never charged with a crime or named as a co-conspirator in any case tied to the organization.
The report, published by The National News Desk and written by Geoff Harris, says Elkomy participated in wire transfers and recorded phone calls for IARA-USA between 1999 and 2002, and that she was included on an exhibit list filed in court proceedings tied to the organization. The Treasury Department officially designated the Missouri-based IARA-USA as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist on October 13, 2004, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, after federal agents raided its offices and determined the group's international umbrella organization had funneled money to Osama bin Laden in 1999 and supported al-Qaeda and Hamas. The National News Desk reports it contacted El-Sayed's campaign for comment, but the campaign did not respond.
What IARA Was Actually Charged With
The legal record on IARA is more narrow than the terror designation alone might suggest. The Department of Justice charged IARA with a 33-count indictment in 2007 for illegally transferring funds to Iraq, and the organization ultimately pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate sanctions by funneling nearly $1.4 million to Iraq, per the seed report. Crucially, the Charity & Security Network notes that federal prosecutors explicitly stated the criminal indictment did not allege material support of terrorism or knowing financing of terror acts — a distinction between sanctions violations and direct terror financing that is easy to blur in political rhetoric.
That distinction matters for a second reason: IARA's history already touches Michigan politics. Former Michigan Republican Congressman and UN Ambassador Mark Deli Siljander pleaded guilty in a related federal case, admitting he took $75,000 from IARA to illegally lobby for the charity's removal from a Senate terrorist watch list, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Unlike Siljander, neither El-Sayed nor his mother were ever charged in connection with IARA, and separately, the report notes IARA at one point served as a conduit to Hamas in one Western European country and moved funds to the Palestinian territories for what the report describes as terrorist activities — allegations tied to the organization broadly, not to Elkomy individually.
Father-In-Law's Donations and Leadership Roles Also Under Scrutiny
The scrutiny extends beyond El-Sayed's mother to his father-in-law, Dr. Jukaku Tayeb, who served as president of CAIR-Michigan and held leadership roles with the Islamic Society of North America, per the seed report. Tayeb also contributed $300,000 to Fighting for Michigan PAC, making him the largest individual donor to the super PAC supporting El-Sayed's campaign, according to PBS News. The seed report also states El-Sayed indirectly received $115,000 in donations from CAIR members.
Critics have long pointed to a 2009 federal court ruling from the Holy Land Foundation trial, which found the Department of Justice had provided what the court called ample evidence of ties between Hamas and organizations including CAIR and ISNA, as reported by City Journal. CAIR, for its part, has condemned violence against civilians, including the October 7 attack on Israel, according to its own website, per the seed report. Rep. Chip Roy has said, per Fox News, that CAIR leadership celebrated the October 7 attack, and Roy has introduced legislation to strip the organization's tax-exempt status; CAIR has also been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates and labeled as such in Florida and Texas legal proceedings, according to the seed report.
Congressional Hearing Drew a Partisan Boycott
These allegations reached Capitol Hill this month, when Sen. Ted Cruz convened a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Muslim Brotherhood influence. Every Democratic member of the subcommittee boycotted the session, leaving Cruz as the only senator present as counterterrorism analyst Kyle Shideler testified, Hoodline previously reported. Shideler told the panel that El-Sayed's candidacy concerned him specifically because of Tayeb's connections to Brotherhood-linked groups, and Cruz directly asked the witness whether El-Sayed's Senate bid worried him.
Shideler's testimony also extended beyond CAIR and IARA. He highlighted El-Sayed's connections to Emgage, a Muslim voter engagement group, pointing out that founding member Khurrum Wahid previously served as a consultant for convicted terrorist Sami al-Arian and was once listed on a federal terror watchlist, according to WFIN.
A Public Health Career Now Facing a Dead-Heat Race
El-Sayed's own record centers on public health administration rather than the organizations now drawing attention. He directed the Detroit Health Department from 2015 to 2017, becoming the youngest health commissioner of a major U.S. city at age 30, and later managed Wayne County's Department of Health, Human, and Veterans Services from 2023 to 2025, according to Ballotpedia. He won Michigan's Democratic Senate primary on August 5 after Rep. Haley Stevens's establishment-backed campaign fell short and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow suspended her own bid in July, overcoming a $26.9 million to $2.1 million television ad spending gap in the primary's final five weeks, as Hoodline detailed in its coverage of Peters's endorsement of Stevens.
El-Sayed has called for Michigan voters to unite against Republican nominee Mike Rogers and has challenged him to multiple debates, per the seed report. The stakes of that contest are underscored by a new AARP poll released yesterday, which found El-Sayed and Rogers locked in a dead heat overall at 44% to 43%, even as Rogers holds a wide 52% to 43% advantage among voters aged 50 and older — a demographic split that could prove decisive as attacks over El-Sayed's family ties continue to circulate ahead of November.
