The decision comes at a moment when the Brotherhood’s once carefully cultivated image as the respectable face of political Islam lies in tatters. Days before Trump’s executive order, Texas governor Greg Abbott made his state the frist to label both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as terrorist entities, vowing to target what he called “radical extremists.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis followed the move by texas with his own similar executive order.With federal momentum now behind him, the designations threatens to cascade across the region-and potentially beyond.
“Hamas was founded as the Egyptian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood and has made this very clear in its Charter of 1987,” Hans-Jakob Schindler, Senior Director of the Counter Extremism Project, tells The Cipher Brief. “The political statement of Hamas of 2017 did not mention this link specifically, but it also did not state that Hamas would be independent. Hence,hamas remains part of the Muslim Brotherhood network.”
Roots of a Transnational Shadow
To grasp the stakes, the story must begin in Ismailia, Egypt, in 1928, when schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna founded the Ikhwan al-Muslimin as a movement of Islamic revival and social reform. What started with Quranic lessons and charity work exploded into a mass organization of hundreds of thousands by the 1940s, complete with a secret paramilitary wing, the Special Apparatus, that carried out bombings and assassinations against British forces and Jewish targets. Egypt banned the group in 1948; al-Banna was assassinated shortly afterward, almost certainly by state security.
Heavy-handed crackdowns, periods of accommodation, and notable ideological shifts have defined the Brotherhood’s trajectory as then.
Officially, the Brotherhood renounced violence in the 1970s, and it built an unrivaled network of mosques, clinics, schools, and labor unions. The 2011 Arab Spring briefly catapulted it to power: Mohamed morsi became Egypt’s first elected president in 2012. Fourteen months later, mass protests and a military coup ended the experiment.Egypt declared the Brotherhood a terrorist organization in 2013, killed more than 1,000 supporters in a single day at Rabaa Square, and imprisoned tens of thousands more. exiled, splintered, and radicalized, remnants went underground or looked to Gaza.
Fernando Caravajal, executive director at The American Center for South Yemen Studies and an expert in Sudanese affairs, tells The Cipher Brief that the Brotherhood’s ideological flexibility allows it to reemerge in power vacuums, but cautions that the potential United States terrorist designation likely stems from outside interests.
“Notice the timing: these statements came a week after the meeting with Saudi,” he said. “It wasn’t announced during the meeting, so we can’t say Saudis are openly pushing it, but they clearly have a hand behind it as of the timing, because of the content. It mentions Jordan and Lebanon – those are Saudi priorities.”
Riyadh’s priorities center on containing Islamist movements and curbing Iranian influence in the Levant, making Jordan and Lebanon key arenas for Riyadh’s regional security strategy.
Across the region, local chapters adapted in different ways. Jordan’s Islamic Action Front (IAF) Are you Subscribed to The Cipher Brief’s Digital Channel on youtube? There is no better place to get clear perspectives from deeply experienced national security experts.
Allies on the Brink
Jordan is already on edge. Dependent on $1.5 billion in annual U.S.aid and facing street fury over Gaza, King Abdullah II banned the Brotherhood in April 2025 – yet the IAF still functions. While Schindler sees Washington’s possible move as reinforcement that will “aid in the efforts of the Jordanian government in countering Muslim Brotherhood structures in the country,” Kelanic warns of unintended consequences.
“The only scenario I worry about is if the U.S. insists on applying the FTO designation to the IAF, because that amounts to major meddling in Jordanian politics,” she noted. “The last thing the U.S. needs is another failed state in the Middle East.”
Turkey, experts point out, is perhaps the bigger headache. Schinder asserts that Turkey “is indeed an vital network hub for Hamas,” in particular when it comes to the group’s financial systems.
“Turkey is in a unique position to pressure Hamas to give up its weapons and