US labels Muslim Brotherhood orgs in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan as ‘terrorists’ 

The United States has designated Muslim Brotherhood organisations in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan as “terrorist” groups, the Associated Press news agency reports, as Washington intensifies its crackdown on Israel’s rivals across the world.

The decision on Tuesday came weeks after President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing his administration to start the process of blacklisting the groups.

“These designations reflect the opening actions of an ongoing, sustained effort to thwart Muslim Brotherhood chapters’ violence and destabilisation wherever it occurs,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement, according to AP.

“The United States will use all available tools to deprive these Muslim Brotherhood chapters of the resources to engage in or support terrorism.”

The designations make it illegal to provide material support to the groups. They also largely ban their current and former members from entering the US and impose economic sanctions to choke their revenue streams.

Established in 1928 by Egyptian Muslim scholar Hassan al-Banna, the Muslim Brotherhood has offshoots and branches across the Middle East, including political parties and social organisations.

The group and its affiliates say they are committed to peaceful political participation.

The Muslim Brotherhood chapter in Lebanon, known as al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, is represented in the Lebanese Parliament.

In Jordan, the group won 31 House of Representatives seats in the 2024 elections through its political arm, the Islamic Action Front (IAF).

But Amman banned the organisation last year, accusing it of links to what the Jordanian government called a sabotage plot.

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood won the country’s only Democratically held presidential election in 2012. But President Mohamed Morsi was overthrown a year later and died in jail in 2019.

Cairo has outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood as well and launched a sweeping crackdown against the group’s leaders and members since 2013, driving the organisation underground and into exile.

In the US and the West, right wing activists have for years tried to demonise Muslim immigrants and Israel’s critics with accusations of links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Some of Trump’s hawkish allies in Congress have been calling for blacklisting the group for years.

After Trump issued his decree to label the Muslim Brotherhood’s branches in Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan as “foreign terrorist organisations”, the Republican governors of Texas and Florida moved to crackdown on the leading Muslim civil rights group in the US.

Both states designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) along with the Muslim Brotherhood as a “terrorist” group.

CAIR, which denies links to the Muslim Brotherhood, has sued them in response.