Iran Expert Timmerman: State Dept Befriends Radical Islamists

The State Department's decision to allow an anti-gay Muslim cleric into the United States is an alarming sign that the government is befriending radical Islamist groups, says Kenneth Timmerman, executive director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran.

"It has been the State Department's policy under both Hillary Clinton and now John Kerry to support the Islamist groups in Syria," Timmerman told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

"The State Department policy has been systematically to aid and abet and sometimes to arm and equip these Islamist groups around the world, specifically in Libya and in Syria."

In January, a report by The Investigative Project on Terrorism stated that the State Department had issued Sheikh Mohammad Rateb al-Nabulsi a visa for a 17-city tour of U.S. mosques to raise money for the uprising in Syria.

In an interview three years ago, the cleric said, "Homosexuality involves a filthy place and does not generate offspring. Homosexuality leads to the destruction of the homosexual. That is why, brothers, homosexuality carries the death penalty."

Timmerman said the United States' embrace of radicals is dangerous.

"[The] mark on my forehead [is] because today is Ash Wednesday," he said.

"If I were to appear in a Christian town in Syria today that had been taken over by these groups, the Islamist groups that Sheik al-Nabulsi is supporting ... would give me two choices ... Get out of town really fast, convert, or die."

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