US lists Building, Development Party as foreign terrorist org

CAIRO - 20 July 2017: United States (US) Secretary of State Department listed the Building and Development political party known as Elbanaa, affiliated to the Egyptian Islamic group Gama’a al-Islamiyya, among 70 global foreign terrorist organizations, in its annual report released on Wednesday on terrorism in 2016.

The Islamic group was already designated by U.S. as foreign terrorist organization in 1997. The party, that is still operating, was founded in 2011 and ran in the parliamentary elections of the same year and won 13 seats.

Years ago the group committed a number of attacks in Egypt; however, it remained dormant during recent years. The majority of attacks that recently took place in Egypt was claimed by the Islamic State or Hamas.

While the U.S. government has labeled the Islamic group as terrorist group, it has been hesitant to label the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, despite its designation as such by the Egyptian state in 2013 after the ouster of the Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi.