Federal terrorism-designation records have thrust the family history of Michigan Senate contender Abdul El-Sayed into view, with The New York Post detailing that his birth mother held employment at a charity the US Treasury labeled a "global terrorist" organization – a body whose foreign branches stood accused of directing money to Osama bin Laden, Hamas, and Taliban operatives.
Elkomy – identified in The Midwesterner's investigation as Fatten Fathy Elkomy – was employed at the Islamic American Relief Agency between 1999 and at least 2004, coinciding precisely with the year Treasury authorities formally designated IARA a supporter of international terrorism.
To outside observers, IARA presented itself as a conflict-zone humanitarian agency, running dozens of offices worldwide and centering its public mission on health services, care for orphaned children, and relief for vulnerable populations.
Behind that facade, Treasury's 2004 findings told a starkly different story: The agency – also listed under the name Islamic African Relief Agency – "provided direct financial support" to the mastermind of the September 11 attacks. Federal investigators stated, "Information available to the US shows that the overseas branches IARA provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to UBL in 1999."
Separate allegations tied the group's network to financial flows benefiting both Hamas and the Taliban. The Department of Justice escalated the matter in March 2007, indicting IARA-US on charges of illegally moving funds into Iraq.
Elkomy faced no personal allegations of misconduct, and the federal proceedings produced no terrorism-related charges against any named individual.
A guilty plea entered by IARA-USA on charges of conspiring to breach sanctions – covering the unlawful transfer of approximately $1.4 million to Iraq – concluded with a 2016 agreement to dissolve the organization. Explaining the settlement's financial terms, the US Attorney's Office stated, "The plea agreement acknowledges that, due to its designation as a specially designated global terrorist and the subsequent blocking of all its property, IARA has no funds readily available to it to pay any fine."
Elkomy flatly rejected any terrorism association in 2004, telling the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "I've been working there serving orphans and children with at least one deceased parent, and it breaks my heart they're not going to get any help."
After immigrating to the US during the early 1980s, El-Sayed's parents divorced and separately remarried. His Senate campaign has leaned consistently on references to his father, Mohamed El-Sayed, and stepmother, Jacqueline El-Sayed – with Elkomy conspicuously absent from his public narrative, a gap The Midwesterner highlighted.
Following a second marriage, Elkomy relocated to the Middle East before eventually returning to the US, where she remains active as a nurse practitioner in Missouri.
