THE Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has warned of a spy operation against Muslims in the United States after it uncovered a “mole” in the leadership of one of its branches.

It alleged that it also had evidence of a spy planted at a mosque who was passing information to an anti-Muslim group.

In mid-December, the organisation announced that it had sacked Romin Iqbal, who was the leader and legal director of CAIR’s Columbus-Cincinnati region in Ohio, for “egregious ethical and professional violations.”

CAIR accused him of passing information to the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), which he allegedly obtained by secretly recording meetings for years.

The IPT was founded in 1995 by pundit Steven Emerson and has been branded “a prominent part of the Islamophobia network” in the United States.

It has been branded “a leading source of anti-Muslim racism” and has been accused of “spewing out conspiracy theories about the Islamic threat,” though it denies this.

Investigations by a third party found “conclusive evidence” that Mr Iqbal had sent the information to “a known anti-Muslim hate group.”

Reflecting on the impact of the discovery, CAIR-Ohio spokeswoman Whitney Siddiqi told Al Jazeera on Thursday: “Community members were shocked and saddened to learn about this specific situation, but a lot of people were also not surprised that an anti-Muslim hate group was targeting CAIR and spying this way.”

In a separate incident last month, the group’s Washington office said that a volunteer at a local mosque revealed that he was being paid by Mr Emerson to leak information on the community.

“A second IPT ‘spy’ has voluntarily come forward, confessed and agreed to co-operate with us,” a CAIR statement said. “He was not part of CAIR. He was an active volunteer in a large mosque who was invited to national community meetings and events.

“We are gathering and vetting additional information from this individual. We have also been directly alerting Muslim leaders and organisations he targeted. We will publicly release his name and additional information after we finish this process, God willing.”

Ms Siddiqi said the aim of the spy operation was to create “fear and distrust in our own communities,” but added that CAIR was continuing its fight against the menace of Islamophobia, “strengthening our connections and our work to protect and defend Muslims.”