The Muslim Brotherhood Has Not Left the Building

Without question, the Muslim Brotherhood has been severely weakened over the past year-and-a-half in Egypt, which has served as the "Brother-ship" since the MB's founding in the Egyptian city of Ismalia in 1928. Scores of Egyptian Brotherhood foot soldiers and top leaders, including former president Mohammed Morsi, have been imprisoned and the movement has been designated a terrorist organization by the government of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (the UAE and Saudi Arabia have also banned the Brotherhood and indentified it as a terrorist entity in recent months).

At the same time, Sisi has declared the armed wing of the MB's Palestinian branch, Hamas, a terrorist group and has called for a reformation in Islam--in front of a roomful of Islamic clerics, no less--while also publicly appearing at a Coptic Christian church, a first for an Egyptian Muslim leader.

Given Sisi's bold stance against the global jihad and the MB's resulting erosion in Egypt, you'd think that the Brothers may be down for the count. Alas, like a legion of jihadi vampires, the Brotherhood can't be killed so easily. It has survived severe crackdowns before (most notably, under Egyptian strongman Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1950s) partly by spreading its tentacles and influence outside of Egypt and it continues to do so today.

For instance, a "delegation of key Brotherhood leaders and allies" recently met with State Department officials in Washington, D.C. Depressingly, this came as no surprise as the Obama administration has embraced the Brotherhood and its proxies again and again over the past six years (while distancing itself from Sisi and genuine Muslim moderates). In doing so, the Obama White House is essentially giving the Brotherhood a lifeline to make proclamations like this one recently calling for violent jihad in Egypt. Of course, as I detailed in my 2013 book, The Brotherhood, such proclamations show the true, violent face of the MB movement. And we may be about to see much more of it.

Here's more, from The Tower:

The terror attack against military forces in Egypt’s northern Sinai last week was beyond a routine terrorist act. Arab security experts are calling it a turning point in the terrorist attacks in Egypt, explaining that the attack shows that Egypt is subject to the turmoil taking place in the Middle East and the local terrorist organizations in Sinai are extensions of larger terrorist organizations with regional agendas.

However, the experts do not rule out the possibility that the terrorist attacks were also part of the political agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood, with the aim of provoking anarchy in Egypt.

In the attacks that killed 45 people in the Al-Arish area, terrorists used advanced battle tactics and weapons similar to those used in terror activity plaguing other countries. Security experts warned of a new wave of cross-border terrorism in Egypt.

The jihadist Ansar Beit al-Maqdis terror group, which took responsibility for the attacks, tried using the attack to prove that it has moved from the local arena to the regional arena, especially after it recently took a vow of loyalty to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The organization has organizational and financial skills that enable it to carry out large complex attacks in Egypt and abroad.

A jihadist outfit with strong "organizational and financial skills?" Sounds familiar. Read on.

Experts who follow the situation in Egypt call attention to the synchronization between the escalation of the attacks of Ansar al-Maqdis and the violent protests carried out by members of the Muslim Brotherhood on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the revolution of January 25, 2011, that led to the downfall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.

The experts do not rule out a connection between the two escalations, especially after an investigation by Egyptian security forces that indicated coordination between the Brotherhood and armed groups in the Sinai. Hisham al-Najjar, a researcher of Islamic movements, said that the attack in al-Arish was designed to influence the political landscape in Egypt with the approach of parliamentary elections. The group’s goal is to present the general atmosphere as unstable and expose the government as being unable to ensure stability.

Makes perfect sense on many levels. And remember, at the end of the day, without the Muslim Brotherhood--the original modern Islamic jihadist group--there would be no Al Qaeda. Which means there would be no ISIS (an Al Qaeda offshoot), and no Ansar Beit al-Maqdis. But whatever you do, just don't call the Muslim Brotherhood terrorists.