Investigate ‘Critical Infrastructure of Jihad’ * The Gateway Pundit * by Peter McIlvenna

On 19 October 2026, Governors Greg Abbott (Texas) and Ron DeSantis (Florida) received an open letter from 33 leaders of patriotic organizations calling for investigations into mosques associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and other sharia supremacism networks and for the imposition of temporary moratoriums on the approval and construction of new mosques in their respective states.

The letter from the BanSharia.com Coalition thanks the Governors for designating the Muslim Brotherhood and its US arm, CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), as terrorist organizations. Abbott made the declaration in November 2025, describing both as a foreign terrorist organization and a transnational criminal organization, and restricting property acquisition in the process. DeSantis made his move in December 2025 with an executive order directing state agencies to deny benefits or resources to anyone who provides material support. CAIR has, of course, brought federal lawsuits in response to both designations, seeking temporary injunctions.

The signatories maintain that the designations must be enforced and that the groups’ activities must cease in Texas and Florida. They point to a “critical infrastructure of jihad” comprising the facilities which the Brotherhood refers to as Islamic societies or Islamic centers (in practice these are mosques). The U.S. total is estimated to be at least 3,150. CAIR co-founder and Executive Director Nihad Awad has put the number at 4,000. The letter goes on to state that new facilities are still being approved and built every month, particularly in Texas and Florida, which are the focus of a campaign of ” stealthy civilization jihad “.

That phrase is in the Muslim Brotherhood’s 1991 ‘Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Objective of the Group in North America’ by Mohamed Akram (a leading Brotherhood figure at the time and still is). The document was admitted as evidence in the Holy Land Foundation trial on terrorism financing. It states: “The process of settlement is a ‘Civilization Jihadist process’ with all the means. The Muslim Brotherhood must realize that their work in America is a kind of great Jihad in the annihilation and destruction of Western civilization from within and in the ‘sabotage’ of its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is wiped out. The religion of Allah is established over all other religions.”

The memo on the role of the mosques is entitled “Understanding the role and the nature of work of ‘the Islamic Center’ in every city with what achieves the goal of the process of settlement”. It states: “To the extent that we own and control these centers at the continental level, we can say that we are progressing successfully in the settlement of Dawa in this country. That is to say that the role of the ‘Center’ is the same as that of the ‘Mosque’ in the time of the Prophet (S) when he was marching to ‘settle’ Dawa in its first generation in Medina.” This is interpreted as equating the role of the mosques that are under the control of the organization with those of the mosques in the days of the Prophet, i.e., they are to be used for the storage of arms and for the training and planning of jihad.

A steadily increasing number of public statements by imams, leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood’s front groups and sharia supremacists in politics all point to seditious intent. The letter asks whether public safety and national security may in fact be compromised by some, or indeed all, of the mosques in America and that this possibility must be investigated with the utmost urgency.

While Texas and Florida conduct their own investigations, the signatories say they could impose moratoriums on approving and constructing any further mosques. They argue that federal constitutional and statutory schemes can implement such moratoria despite the very strong state interests at stake. The letter calls on the governors to carry out threat assessments of the Islamic community, Islamic centers and other mosques and to, in the course of those assessments, prevent any further expansion of that infrastructure.

Of the 33 signatories: Rep. Keith Self (R-TX); Lt. Gen. (Ret.) William “Jerry” Boykin, Executive VP of the Family Research Council; Ayaan Hirsi Ali, founder of the AHA Foundation; Frank Gaffney, President of the Institute for the American Future; Anne Schlafly, Chair of the Eagle Forum; Kimberly Fletcher, founder and president of Moms for America; me as founder and Director of Hearts of Oak. Others include leaders from the Texas Eagle Forum, Grassroots America (We the People PAC), the American Family Association, and several organizations focused on national security and constitutional issues.

The letter goes on to state that the Governors previously designated the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as having both the authority and the duty to assess the facilities in question and to prevent any further expansion of those facilities during the assessments. No fixed timescale is suggested beyond the timescale required for the assessments.