Trump to declare Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood terrorist organization

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Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said on Tuesday it would continue to work in line with "our moderate and peaceful thinking" regardless of moves by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to designate it a foreign terrorist organization.

The White House said earlier that Trump was acting following a request from Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who as army chief in 2013 engineered the removal of freely elected President Mohamed Mursi, a senior Brotherhood figure, and a subsequent crackdown on its supporters.

"The president has consulted with his national security team and leaders in the region who share his concern, and this designation is working its way through the internal process," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said.

Placing the Muslim Brotherhood on Washington's list of foreign terrorist organizations would make it a crime for any American to assist the group and would ban from the United States its members, who are active in political parties in several countries.

U.S. President Donald Trump hosts Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi at the White House on April 9, 2019. /Reuters Photo

"We will remain ... steadfast in our work in accordance with our moderate and peaceful thinking and what we believe to be right, for honest and constructive cooperation to serve the communities in which we live, and humanity as a whole," the Brotherhood said in a statement on its official website.

"The Muslim Brotherhood will remain stronger – through God's grace and power – than any decision."

Founded in Egypt in 1928, the Brotherhood came to power in the country's first modern free election in 2012, a year after former President Hosni Mubarak was toppled in an uprising.

After Mursi was himself overthrown in 2013, the Brotherhood was swiftly banned. Egyptian authorities have declared it a terrorist organization and jailed thousands of its followers and much of its leadership, including Mursi.

The Brotherhood says it is a non-violent movement and denies any relationship to violent insurgencies waged by al-Qaeda and Islamic State militants.

(With input from Reuters and AFP)

(Cover: Protesters hold a banner with images of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Egypt's deposed president Mohamed Morsi during a December 2017 rally in Istanbul. /AFP Photo)