Congressmen push for labeling MB terrorist: FOX News

CAIRO – 22 November 2017: About twenty US congressmen are currently pushing for designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, according to FOX News, which exclusively obtained the draft letter meant to be submitted to the U.S. State Secretary.

A short time before Trump’s inauguration, Republican Senator Ted Cruz tabled a bill designating the MB as a terrorist organization.

Fox News further said that the draft letter, which suggests putting further restrictions on the MBs and their movement, referred to the prior examples of Arab countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates designating the group as terrorist, shunning them completely.

“There might be a debate over labeling the entire Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, but there's no debate about these three branches. Our Egyptian, Saudi, and UAE allies already did the legwork uncovering all the bad behavior and they concluded these branches support terrorism, and they are looking to us for support. Designating these branches is good politics, good policy, and - especially - good diplomacy,” FOX news quoted a U.S. adviser as saying.

Congressmen like Ted Cruz have long encouraged labeling the MB as a foreign terrorist organization, “a move that should have been implemented early on,” Frank Gaffney, the creator of a 10-part video series titled “The Muslim Brotherhood in America: The Enemy Within,” said on October 17 during an online radio meeting with former Department of Homeland Security employee, Phil Haney.

In June, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that blacklisting the MB as a “totality” would complicate U.S. relations in the Middle East. He added “but at the top of the quality chain, if I can call it that, there are elements of the [MB] that have now become parts of governments,” Tillerson said, referring to MB elements in the Turkish Parliament.

Turkey has been forcefully siding with the MB and mutual relations have been strained since the ouster of ex-MB President Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

“The United States administration has wanted for some time to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, but has held off so far. One of the factors for the delay is Turkey’s opposition to the designation,” Tom Little, an international affairs specialist for the U.S. army, told Egypt Today.

“Turkey is a key strategic partner with the United States in the war against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Turkey has threatened to withdraw this support if the United States goes ahead with designating the Muslim Brotherhood. This would be a serious blow to the United States in that region. Negotiations with Turkey continue to find successful resolution and maintain their cooperation in Syria and Iraq.” Little further illustrated that the delay of such a move does not negate the U.S. commitment to the global war on terror.

Since December 2013, the Muslim Brotherhood has been declared a terrorist group in Egypt.