Sam Westrop is a TPPF Senior Fellow and one of the nation’s foremost experts on Islamist extremism and radicalization to focus on the growing challenges facing the state.
Westrop has led the Middle East Forum’s Islamist Watch project since 2017 and previously founded Stand for Peace, a London-based counter-extremism organization that monitored Islamist movements throughout the United Kingdom, advising journalists, government ministers, and documentary-makers on extremism, radicalization, and terror.
His work has appeared in publications including National Review, The Hill, and National Post, and he has been a featured voice on the BBC, Al Jazeera, and numerous other broadcast outlets.
While much-needed attention has finally been placed on the outsized and once-underreported influence of foreign regimes such as Qatar on public education in Texas, a broad array of domestic Islamist organizations, making use of America’s easily-exploited 501(c) nonprofit system, are funneling money and injecting influence into public schools and universities across the state, a review...
In March, the Texas Scorecard reported that the Texas Education Agency was investigating the Manara Academy District, a charter school system. An agency spokesman confirmed “an open investigation … examining district-level systems, practices and compliance related to allegations concerning prohibited use of instructional materials and classroom activities.” The investigation is welcome. New research indicates that...
Across the state, a collection of terror networks and their Islamist partners are using US politicians, institutions and nonprofit infrastructure to advance violent, radical ambitions. In 2022, Yasin Malik, the leader of a Kashmiri group declared by a US federal appeals court as a terrorist organisation involved in killings, bombings and kidnappings, was sentenced by an Indian...
More than 700 Islamic nonprofit organizations operate across Texas. An ideological survey and mapping of these groups indicates that at least a third operate under the influence or control of one of seven terror-tied Islamist networks active in the state. Movements such as the Taliban-tied Deobandis, anti-Semitic Salafis, and the violent Jamaat-e-Islami movement, among others,...
A Texas Islamist network working to radicalize Shia Muslim students at educational institutions across the state, including Texas public universities, is made up of agents and proxies for the murderous Iranian regime. In March, the Iranian regime and its proxies across the world organized “Al-Quds Day,” a global annual event to celebrate Hezbollah and Iranian...
Too many policymakers think of the Iranian regime as solely a Middle Eastern matter. But with attentions focused elsewhere, a powerful network of South Asian Shia Islamists operates with near impunity much closer—across the state of Texas. On March 13, a Pakistani Shia mosque in Houston, named the Ali Center, hosted a commemoration for the...
At the direction of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has ordered the Texas American Muslim University at Dallas (TexAM) to halt its operations, stating that the organization is not a recognized university and thus “prohibited by law from granting or offering to grant degrees.” But there are other reasons for...