Paid to Defame: How the UAE Funded Smear Campaigns Against Muslim Communities in Europe

In January 2026, leaked documents from the European Parliament revealed that the United Arab Emirates funneled millions of dollars to a Swiss intelligence firm to carry out covert smear campaigns across Europe.

The documents show that Abu Dhabi funded black propaganda targeting Islam, Muslims, and mosques, as well as journalists, academics, and politicians, using fake news networks operating in 18 European countries. The aim is to cast Muslims as an internal threat, justify mosque closures, fabricate charges, and spread a systematic anti-Islamic narrative in the West.

The leaks also highlight a clear alignment between the UAE’s messaging and Israeli-linked narratives portraying Islam as a security threat, amplifying the campaigns’ political and media impact across European societies.

These revelations confirm investigative reporting from 2023 by outlets including France’s Mediapart and the European Investigative Collaboration (EIC), which exposed a complex, multi-national UAE network working to distort perceptions of Islam in Europe and combat what Abu Dhabi calls “Muslim Brotherhood ideology,” alleging its spread among Muslim communities, politicians, and religious institutions.

In April 2024, Mediapart published an extensive investigation showing that judicial probes had been launched against the head of the Swiss intelligence firm, accused of spying on European business and political figures at the direct request of the UAE.

Charges against the UAE-linked company include “illegal espionage,” “espionage for a foreign state,” “defamation,” and “money laundering.” Investigators also alleged the firm handed over lists of nearly 1,000 Europeans and 400 organizations to Abu Dhabi, claiming ties to the Muslim Brotherhood—without presenting verified evidence.

Leaks 2026

On January 5, 2026, European activists and media outlets revealed new leaked documents from European Parliament investigations showing how the UAE secretly funded coordinated smear campaigns against Islam and Muslims, linking these operations directly to a rise in Islamophobia across Europe in recent years.

On January 7 and 9, the Balkan news agency Prizren Post and India’s TFI Global published in-depth reports based on the leaks, under headlines such as “UAE-led covert anti-Islam operations in Europe” and “Emirati funding for anti-Islam influence campaigns and right-wing politics in Europe.”

The reports detailed how mosques, civil society organizations, journalists, academics, and politicians in more than 18 European countries were targeted, with content pushed through think tanks and media outlets to appear independent and neutral.

According to the leaks, the main aim was reputation sabotage and political pressure, enabling restrictions on religious freedoms and normalizing suspicion and hostility toward Muslims in the West—a form of foreign interference threatening social cohesion and democratic trust.

Media analysts suggest the leaks likely came from European Parliament insiders frustrated by Emirati attempts to influence EU institutions, including bribes to cover up Abu Dhabi’s support for Sudanese militia leader Hemedti.

The reports also noted that semi-official Saudi accounts participated in the campaign against the UAE, reflecting ongoing tensions between the two states over Yemen and Sudan. Platforms like The Saudi Post detailed the UAE’s role in labeling Muslims in Europe as linked to the Muslim Brotherhood without any documented evidence, while fueling financial and media campaigns against them.

European activists have linked the surge of UAE-backed accounts spreading anti-Islam hate speech across Europe to a sharp rise in Islamophobia, particularly during the period when these campaigns were exposed and reached the European Parliament.

Observers also noted that far-right European groups exploited the provocative content to target Muslim communities politically and in the media.

The European Parliament moved to act after media reports, most notably investigations by the EIC, revealed that a Swiss intelligence firm, Alp Services, had received funding from Emirati entities to carry out systematic defamation and smear campaigns across several European countries between 2017 and 2020.

The campaigns involved compiling lists of individuals and organizations—over 1,000 people and 400 groups in 18 countries—labeling them as extremists, linked to “political Islam,” or tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, with no evidence.

These operations coincided with a spike in anti-Islam rhetoric and were exploited by far-right European groups to target Muslim communities.

The Financial Times and the Jewish Chronicle reported on January 9, 2026, that the UAE had cut scholarships for students seeking to study at British universities, citing London’s refusal to classify the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization and concerns over students being influenced by political Islam inside those universities.

As a result, the UAE’s Ministry of Higher Education removed all UK universities from its list of approved institutions, despite their global academic standing.

‘Abu Dhabi Secrets’

According to the “Abu Dhabi Secrets” investigation conducted by the EIC in 2023, UAE intelligence enlisted the Swiss firm Alp Services in 2017—a company specializing in smear campaigns, disinformation, and the creation of fake accounts.

The European Parliament’s website published a document on July 31, 2023, outlining the role of Alp Services in running anti-Muslim disinformation campaigns. The company reportedly spied on European citizens and passed their names to UAE intelligence, deliberately tarnishing their reputations.

The document stated that the campaign targeted activists, organizations, and politicians across 18 European countries, falsely linking them to extremist Islamic networks. The smear operations caused “serious damage to their reputations” and contributed to widespread public distrust of Muslims and Islam.

The document called for a clear determination of the steps that should be taken by the Vice President of the European Commission (the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy) and the European Commission itself to confront this disinformation campaign, launch a counteroffensive, and hold the UAE accountable.

The “Abu Dhabi Secrets” dossier confirms that millions of dollars were paid to the Swiss firm Alp Services between 2017 and 2020 to carry out disinformation campaigns targeting Muslims, mosques, and other individuals across 18 European countries, falsely linking them to extremism.

According to the key findings of “Abu Dhabi Secrets,” based on original documents released by the European Federation of Journalists, the UAE classified Muslims in Europe as “associated with the Muslim Brotherhood” without any documented evidence.

The documents reveal that the UAE funded fake social media accounts promoting content that linked Islam with terrorism in English, German, and French, deliberately aiming to tarnish Islam’s image across Europe.

The operations also included the manipulation and falsification of Wikipedia pages to defame Muslim figures. The UAE-funded company lobbied European banks to close the accounts of certain Islamic organizations or individual Muslims under the pretext of alleged links to terrorism financing.

Under the title “Abu Dhabi Secrets: UAE Spies Targeted by French and Swiss Courts,” Mediapart published an extensive report on April 15, 2024, exposing the UAE’s espionage activities against Europeans under the guise of targeting the Muslim Brotherhood. The report relied on 78,000 confidential documents obtained by Mediapart and later broadcast by the EIC.

Following these revelations, French and Swiss courts launched investigations into the UAE and its proxy, the head of the Swiss intelligence company, for spying on European business figures, politicians, and journalists at the request of UAE intelligence.

The Two Operations: ‘Arnica’ and ‘Crocus’

According to “Abu Dhabi Secrets,” the UAE intelligence services have been using Alp Services since 2017 to carry out disinformation and defamation campaigns. These included creating fake accounts, spreading misleading information, manipulating Wikipedia content, and pressuring European banks to shut down accounts of Islamic organizations.

The first contract, signed in October 2017, was worth €5.7 million, funded by an Emirati research center called al-Ariaf, which operated as a cover for intelligence operations.

The operations were codenamed Arnica or Crocus, after famous Swiss mountain flowers. Their targets were the Muslim Brotherhood members, whose reputations were systematically destroyed through fabricated information spread by a network of mercenary journalists, according to the investigations.

On July 8, 2023, the Belgian network RTBF reported that an investigation conducted by Belgian authorities in coordination with other European capitals revealed that the UAE was tracking European figures through private intelligence companies, systematically defaming them under claims of affiliation with the “Muslim Brotherhood.”

The campaign reportedly targeted more than 1,000 individuals across Europe, including 160 Belgians, prompting the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to demand a full explanation from the UAE ambassador in Brussels.

Following the leaks from this network, Belgium formally summoned the UAE ambassador in response to media reports detailing the involvement of Abu Dhabi in a smear campaign affecting nearly 1,000 Europeans, as reported by Middle East Eye on July 9, 2023.

European courts in France and Switzerland have since filed charges against Alp Services and, indirectly, the UAE, related to the transfer of personal data on approximately 1,000 European citizens and 400 organizations to the UAE, to target and defame them for alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Victims of the UAE Smear Campaign

Investigations revealed that the UAE collected these names from 18 European countries, incorrectly labeling many of the individuals as sympathizers of the Muslim Brotherhood, which in turn led to a cascade of legal actions against the UAE by those affected.

The lists sent to the UAE included prominent French figures, such as Benoit Hamon, the former French presidential candidate, and Samia Ghali, deputy mayor of Marseille and member of La France Insoumise (the radical left), as well as institutions like the National Center for Scientific Research, despite having no affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Also named was Rokhaya Diallo, a French journalist and activist, who became one of the victims of the wide-ranging and unlawful surveillance campaign and filed an official complaint with the Paris public prosecutor’s office against the UAE.

At the end of March 2024, American political science researcher Farid Hafiz filed a lawsuit in the United States against the Swiss intelligence firm Alp Services and against Lorenzo Vidino, a scholar of “Islamic extremism” and professor at George Washington University, whom the “Abu Dhabi Secrets” investigation revealed had been employed by the UAE as part of its campaign to defame Islamists.

Hafiz expressed relief that the "Abu Dhabi Secrets" investigation had exposed the systematic smear campaigns he and others endured, campaigns prompted by their research that did not align with the political interests of the UAE.

As a result of UAE incitement and defamation, Hafiz, alongside a large group of Austrian Muslims, was subjected to searches, investigations, and arrests under what became known as Operation Luxor, carried out by the Austrian government in November 2020.

Once the accusations were proven false and the operation ruled illegal in 2021, Hafiz left Austria and relocated to the United States.

It later came to light that Operation Luxor was based on a report by academic Lorenzo Vidino, who, the "Abu Dhabi Secrets" investigation revealed, had been paid to work on behalf of the UAE.

In Hafiz’s lawsuit against the Swiss intelligence firm Alp Services and Vidino, he argued that both were responsible for the smear campaign targeting him, which falsely portrayed him as an “Islamist extremist” affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood—a characterization that served as the pretext for his arrest in Austria, based on this UAE-instigated tip.

Among other victims was Hazim Nada, founder of Swiss oil trading company Lord Energy and the son of prominent banker and Muslim Brotherhood member Yusuf Nadda. Despite having no financial or political ties to the Brotherhood, Nada’s bank accounts were closed as a result of these defamation campaigns.

In January 2024, Nada filed a lawsuit in the United States against the UAE, claiming that these campaigns had destroyed his company and forced it into bankruptcy, solely by linking him to the Muslim Brotherhood through familial association.

The significance of Nada’s legal battle lies in the fact that he chose to sue the UAE government directly, despite U.S. laws typically granting foreign governments legal immunity.