US report exposes Brotherhood’s links to terrorism

Shaimaa Hefzi

A report by the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) has documented the relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorist groups, despite the organization’s ‘non-violence’ slogan, which is false, according to the report.

A 2015 U.K. government investigation concluded that the Brotherhood has “promoted a radical, transformative politics, at odds with a millennium of Islamic jurisprudence and statecraft. In line with the British assessment, and despite the Brotherhood’s official commitment to non-violence, CEP has documented ideological and operational links between the Brotherhood’s ideology and violent terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Brotherhood ideology has directly influenced several notable terrorist leaders. Al-Qaeda’s founders were students of early Brotherhood ideologues such as theoretician Sayyid Qutb. Al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri and ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi all belonged to the Brotherhood before assuming roles in their respective terror networks, according to the report.

The Egyptian authorities have directly connected the Brotherhood to violence in Egypt since the 2013 fall of the Brotherhood-led government.

Senior Brotherhood member Mohammad Jamal Khalifa was arrested in 1994 in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Prior to his death in 2007, authorities linked Khalifa to the financing of al-Qaeda, his brother-in-law Osama bin Laden, and the Philippines-based Abu Sayyaf Group.

CEP has recorded 44 individuals and groups tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, including terrorist groups, foreign fighters, extremist propagandists, and political leaders.

Last month, the White House spokeswoman, Sarah Sanders, said: “The president has consulted with his national security team and leaders in the region who share his concern, and this designation is working its way through the internal process.”

The order to look again at the designation, first reported by the New York Times, came in the wake of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi’s visit to the White House on April 9.

A number of countries like Russia and the United Arab Emirates designate the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, which was founded by Hassan al-Banna in 1928.