In the United States a small but increasingly vocal group of people believe that members of the country’s Muslim community are working from within to turn America into an Islamic state. This group of right wing thinkers believe this so-called ‘Soft Jihad’ is being carried out in schools, universities and other institutions across the country and they want to put a stop to it. In Assignment, Pascale Harter travels to America to find out how this fear is finding a foothold in public opinion there and hears from some of those accused of being the ’soft jihadists’.

Listen from the BBC World Service.

FP Passport looks more closely at the source of allegations against Abashi:

The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report employs a fairly loose definition of Muslim Brotherhood affiliates that includes fairly mainstream organizations such as the Islamic Society of North America and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Amusingly, recent FP contributors Graham Fuller and Marc Lynch are also described as Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers. As Passport readers know, Lynch has indeed met with senior Brotherhood leaders in Cairo, but they hardly see eye to eye. Fuller’s supposed ties are of the six-degrees-of-Mahdi Akef variety.

I agree with FP Passport’s assessment that the response by Obama is “an indication of how rattled the Obama campaign is by all the Muslim rumors”.

The comments to the FP Passport post, looking at the owners of the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report website are also worth following up.