Leaked archive places a 2018 Emirati-commissioned report at the root of US Brotherhood listings

Drop Site News published on 2 October a report based on what it describes as “an archive of leaked documents” concerning Alp Services, a Geneva-based private intelligence firm working for the United Arab Emirates. According to the outlet, Alp commissioned from a US researcher a 2018 report titled “The MB in the US,” authored by Lorenzo Vidino, head of the George Washington University Program on Extremism, as part of a campaign to damage the reputations of American Muslim organizations through allegations of Muslim Brotherhood links. The report names dozens of individuals and organizations — among them CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Muslim American Society — as part of what Drop Site characterises as a claimed vast and secretive extremist network. “The report does not provide evidence to substantiate Vidino’s allegations,” Drop Site writes, framing the output as effectively a blacklist and saying aspects of the proposed campaign “appear to be ongoing.”

Three cautions belong in the same breath as the report. It is single-sourced and document-based; the provenance and chain of custody of the archive are not established in what this desk retrieved. No response from Vidino, from George Washington University, from Alp Services or from Emirati officials has been retrieved, and it is not established whether comment was sought. And no payment figure appears: the 2022 European reporting used the word “millions,” and that figure cannot be carried across to the American story. What the 2 October piece is not, is a revelation. The Alp Services–UAE relationship was reported from 2022 under the “Abu Dhabi Secrets” banner by Mediapart and a consortium of European outlets, and covered by Middle East Eye, The New Arab and Amwaj.media, all describing an Emirati-funded operation to label European Muslims as extremists. This is the US extension of a four-year-old European file.

The same structural pattern is visible in Europe this autumn, and should be read with the same suspicion. TRENDS Research & Advisory, an Abu Dhabi think tank, hosted a forum on Brotherhood networks in Europe at the UK Parliament on or around 9 September, reported by EU Reporter, a Brussels outlet that carries sponsored and advocacy content; a European Times piece reports policymakers being urged to build a common anti-Brotherhood strategy. The Emirati state-aligned outlet Al-Ain ran a piece around 1 October headlined, in translation, “The provinces join in: a full blockade on the Brotherhood in Austria.” Reporting on an Austrian plan to ban “political Islam” rests, in what this desk retrieved, entirely on partisan and non-Austrian outlets; the underlying government document has not been located and Austrian policy should not be asserted from that base.

Assessment: The temptation is to let 2 October dispose of 29 September. It does not. A report can be commissioned by an interested state and still be accurate, and Florida’s Cabinet did not cite Vidino. What the Drop Site file does is raise the evidentiary question that the Florida record already invites: CAIR’s own filing argues the state is assembling its proof after the branding, not before. The missing right-of-reply from Vidino and GWU is the single most important follow-up on this desk — not because it would settle the allegation, but because its absence is currently the story’s weakest joint. Watch also whether the Program on Extremism opens any review of the 2018 commission.