US State Dept promotes Muslim cleric who supported fatwa on killing of US soldiers

The US State Department's Counter Terrorism Bureau reportedly promoted a Muslim scholar, whose organization endorsed a 'fatwa' authorizing the killing of US soldiers in Iraq.

The CT bureau, on its Twitter account, posted link to the official website of Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah who happens to be the vice president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS).

According to the Washington Times, the CT Bureau tweet linked to a press release on Bin Bayyah's site condemning the kidnapping of hundreds of Nigerian girls by the Boko Haram group.

Bin Bayyah is one of several clerics, who endorsed a 2004 fatwa that approved resistance against Americans fighting in Iraq. The fatwa stated that resisting occupation troops is a duty for all Muslims, the report said.

The cleric issued another fatwa in 2009 barring 'all forms of normalization' with Israel, the report added.

Terrorism analyst Patrick Poole said that the State Department must carefully choose the Muslim leaders they want to promote and clerics like Bin Bayyah have been actively aiding the terrorist group al-Qaeda.