Elizabeth O’Bagy’s Syrian Task Force Defunct?

**UPDATE on October 8, 2013 at 10:46am EST** The Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF) website appears to be back online. While Moustafa is still listed as the “Executive Director”, there appears to have been some additional deck shuffling. The number of “Policy Fellows” has dwindled from three down to one (Evan Barrett is the only one remaining). Also, the number of Muslim Board members has grown from at least three to at least seven:

SETF's Old Fellows and Board

SETF’s Old Fellows and Board

SETF's Remaining Fellow and New Board.

SETF’s Remaining Fellow and New Board.

Far be it from us to be presumptuous but since Senator John McCain (RINO-AZ) cited Elizabeth O’Bagy in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on September 3rd, the task force O’Bagy worked for at the time has continued to diminish in size, undergoing extremely unusual changes. As of the date / time of this post, the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF) website appears to be down.

SETF Website: Fed to the Alligators?

SETF Website: Fed to the Alligators?

Just when we think the SETF has stopped the bleeding, it always seems to cut off another appendage. Until now, we’ve been chronicling the fate of the SETF after McCain’s outing of O’Bagy as it has unfolded. This time, let’s work backward.

Today, the SETF website went down (see above). Prior to today, it featured Mouaz Moustafa as its Executive Director:

SETF: Now a Staff of one.

SETF: Now a Staff of one.

Last May, Moustafa and McCain traveled to Syria together (with O’Bagy):

Mouaz Moustafa and John McCain in Syria.

Mouaz Moustafa and John McCain in Syria.

On Friday, September 27th, it was learned that McCain hired O’Bagy as a Legislative Assistant. This happened less than two weeks after O’Bagy was jettisoned from the SETF. As of September 13th, O’Bagy and Moustafa were the only members of the SETF staff:

Syrian Emergency Task Force: Moustafa and O'Bagy.

Syrian Emergency Task Force: Moustafa and O’Bagy.

Prior to the 13th, Cassie Chesley was part of the staff:

Syrian Emergency Task Force before Cassie went bye-bye.

Syrian Emergency Task Force before Cassie went bye-bye.

As of September 7th, Research Associate Ahmad Soliman was one of four members of the SETF Staff:

SETF_Staff

For the record, Soliman’s connection to the Muslim Brotherhood is not a matter of conjecture; it is a matter of fact. O’Bagy’s connection to Soliman is significant becaause of Soliman’s disturbing connections to the Brotherhood. McCain’s willingness to embrace O’Bagy would open the Senator up to legitimate charges of treason if the Muslim Brotherhood would finally be identified as an enemy of the U.S. If that happened, McCain would be too. O’Bagy and Soliman were not just members of the SETF staff. There appears to have been a rather very comfortable relationship between the two:

Photo from O'Bagy Facebook page appears to show O'Bagy and Soliman.

Photo from O’Bagy Facebook page appears to show O’Bagy and Soliman.

**UPDATE at 6:31am EST on October 29, 2013**
We received a note from one of our readers about the man in the photo with O’Bagy above. While there is a resemblance to Soliman, the man in the photo is actually Omer Zarpli, a Research Associate with the Century Foundation who has attended school in Turkey.

Omer_Zarpli

Zarpli also worked for the Permanent Mission of Turkey to the UN, according to the Carnegie Council website. In 2009, Zarpli wrote a piece entitled, [Gitmo’s darkness] Time for change and enlightenment, which essentially called for the shutdown of Gitmo. In the days after the chemical weapons attack in Syria, Zarpli tweeted an article that appeared in the Today’s Zaman, a Turkish newspaper; it called for the toppling of Assad.

Many of his tweets were re-tweeted by O’Bagy.

**End of update**

This all takes us back to September 3, 2013, when McCain cited O’Bagy in an effort to make his case to fund the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Syrian rebels:

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