US Muslim rights group CAIR reveals second mole

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has revealed that a second former mole has come forward and confessed to working with a hate group to spy on Muslims in the United States.

This comes just a week after the Muslim civil rights organisation announced that a high-level employee in its Ohio chapter had been spying on his colleagues and community.

Unlike the mole revealed last week, this man was not a CAIR staff member.

The organisation said he had come forward of his own free will, long after he had stopped spying on the Muslim community.

The man, whose name has not yet been revealed, plans to come forward to the public in the near future, CAIR said.

“We knew all along there was more than one in the community,” Edward Mitchell, CAIR’s national deputy director, told The New Arab.

“The second one came forward before anyone confronted him. He confessed and offered to help.”

The man volunteered with a large mosque and was well connected with Muslim leaders, which got him into high-level meetings.

Last week, CAIR announced that Ohio chapter director Romin Iqbal had worked for more than a decade with the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), a group described by the Islamophobia Network as "presenting Islam as an inherently radical, violent and antagonistic religion." The group’s founder, Steven Emerson, is referred to by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-Muslim activist.

“I think we’re happy this hate group’s plots unravelled before their eyes. They’ve gotten away with it for years, and now the jig is up,” said Mitchell.

Despite this fortnight's shocking revelations, Mitchell said CAIR will persist with its work undeterred.

“We’re not afraid. We have nothing to hide,” he said. “Even if there’s another mole, at the end of the day we’ll find out who they are sooner or later. These people are being exposed one by one.”

He said, “I feel a sense of confidence in ourselves, and an indifference to those who wish to harm us. We’re committed to our work. This is an important moment in Muslim American history. We’re going on the offense of these groups.”