US media reported late last month that Robert Malley had been appointed as the senior advisor to President Obama who will focus solely on fighting ISIS. According to the CNN report:
November 30, 2015 Washington (CNN)The White House announced Monday new steps in its counter terror campaign, including measures that will tighten the security in the visa waiver program and the naming of a new senior adviser to the President — Robert Malley — who will focus solely on the anti-ISIS fight.
These announcements come as President Barack Obama traveled to Paris in the wake of recent terrorist attacks that killed 130 people, for a landmark climate summit this week. While the President moved to secure an historic climate deal to reduce carbon emissions — a key part of his legacy– the global threat of ISIS has shared the main stage.
‘We’re cognizant that our global campaign to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL has a special residence in this city,’ White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters before outlining the latest White House actions.
The new adviser, Malley, previously served as senior director at the National Security Council for the Middle East and Africa. Earnest said at a briefing in Paris that Malley’s role will be complimentary to that of Brett McGurk, the State Department special envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition.
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In March, the GMBDW reported that President Obama had appointed Robert Malley, a former International Crisis Group executive, as his new special assistant for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf region. As noted in that post, Mr. Malley was formerly the program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group (ICG). As we also noted at that time, there are serious questions about the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas within the ICG, founded in 1995 as “an international non-governmental organization on the initiative of a group of well known transatlantic figures who despaired at the international community’s failure to anticipate and respond effectively to the tragedies in the early 1990s of Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia. Notable members of the board have included former Carter National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, financier George Soros, former Nato commander Wesley Clark, and former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer. In 2008 we reported that the International Crisis Group (ICG) had issued a report recommending that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood be integrated in Egyptian political life and that Brotherhood posted a statement on its website saying that the group agrees with the recommendations.
The GMBDW has also reported since 2007 on the Muslim Brotherhood and/or Hamas background of two of the ICG Trustees which may help to explain the ICG position on the Brotherhood. Palestinian-born Wadah Khanfar is a current member of the ICG board. We have long reported on the Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas ties of Waddah Khanfar now head of the Huffington Post, Arabic Edition. Another former board member of the ICG is former Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim who has many ties to the global Muslim Brotherhood including helping to found the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) where he currently serves as a director, representing Asian youth and serving as a trustee for the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) during the 1970’s and early 1980’s, and appearances at numerous Brotherhood-linked conferences. His ICG bio omitted this background.