JOHANNESBURG: The Trump administration, citing Iran, is taking more action against the Muslim Brotherhood—this time in one of the world’s worst conflicts: the civil war in Sudan.
On Monday, the State Department declared the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood (SMB) to be a “Designated Global Terrorist and intends to designate the group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, effective March 16, 2026.” The statement also contained a warning to Iran regarding its meddling in the conflict.
“The SMB has contributed upwards of 20,000 fighters to the war in Sudan, many receiving training and other support from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” the statement noted.
It added, “As the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, the Iranian regime has financed and directed malign activities globally through its IRGC. The United States will use all available tools to deprive the Iranian regime and Muslim Brotherhood chapters of the resources to engage in or support terrorism.”
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In November, the State Department sanctioned the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, declaring it to be a terrorist organization in those countries.
The organization, the State Department noted, is “composed of the Sudanese Islamic Movement and its armed wing – the al-Baraa Bin Malik Brigade (BBMB), (and) uses unrestrained violence against civilians to undermine efforts to resolve the conflict in Sudan and advance its violent Islamist ideology.”
The statement added that the group’s “fighters have conducted mass executions of civilians in areas they captured, and repeatedly and summarily executed civilians based on race, ethnicity or perceived affiliation with opposition groups.”
Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told Fox News Digital that the Muslim Brotherhood’s links within the Sudanese government’s Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are deep and contribute aggressively in the war against the Rapid Support Forces.
Fitton-Brown, a former U.K. ambassador to Yemen, added that the Brotherhood has a “strong component” in the Sudanese regular army.
Adding that the Brotherhood in Sudan has historical links with Osama Bin Laden, responsible with al Qaeda for the 9/11 terrorist attack, Fitton-Brown stated that the State Department’s move is significant. “It is the first concrete indication that the November executive order was only the start of a process.”
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On the sanctioning of the Brotherhood in several countries in the region, he said, “I expect there will be many more, possibly starting with al-Islah in Yemen.” He said the move “puts Sudan under political pressure because it is effectively associating its government with a terrorist entity.”
The effects of the nearly three-year-long civil war on the people of Sudan are dire. Last month, the Council on Foreign Relations’ global conflict tracker stated the “death toll estimates vary widely, with the former U.S. envoy for Sudan suggesting as many as 400,000 have been killed since the conflict began on April 15, 2023. More than 11 million have been displaced, giving rise to the worst displacement crisis in the world.
On Monday, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho., posted on X, “This is a vital step to curb the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence in the region, especially as hardline Islamists seek to reassert themselves. Now, we must also seriously consider the same FTO designation for the genocidal Rapid Support Forces and their terror campaign in Sudan.”
Fitton-Brown said the State Department’s designation against the Brotherhood in Sudan “is good because it objectively targets a group of people who have brought untold misery to Sudan over decades. It is not a statement of support for the RSF. It is potentially empowering of democratic forces inside Sudan, although it will not be sufficient to change the way Sudan is governed or end the civil war, without much more proactive external involvement in the country.”
Nicholas Coghlan, a former Canadian diplomat in Khartoum, was not as hopeful, telling Toronto’s Globe and Mail that hardline factions within leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s government alliance “will push him now to ignore the U.S. and other potential mediators and go all out,” adding “they have nothing further to lose by holding back.”
