That mysterious terrorist organisation that calls itself the Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis (Supporters of Jerusalem) — where did it come from? What are its aims? All movements that use Islam to achieve political goals emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood. This terrorist organisation was founded in 1928, purportedly as a proselytising group that was not interested in political power. It was not long before it clashed with the government after having revealed that, indeed, its hidden aim was to reach power by any means. In the process, it exposed its terrorist face through its acts of vandalism and destruction, and murder and assassination. The Muslim Brotherhood clashed with governments in the monarchical era and in the republican era. Following the fall of its regime on 30 June 2013, it broadened the scope of its antagonism. It now also clashed with the Egyptian people in a relentless bid to defy their popular will. All the movements that fall under the category of “political Islam” stemmed from the Muslim Brotherhood, from the jihadist and takfiri groups at home to Hamas and Al-Qaeda abroad. The latest in a long list is that group that names itself after one of the holiest sites in Islam. Not that its terrorist acts remotely indicate that it is engaged in a struggle to free that holy place from the desecration of the Zionist occupation. Rather, the targets of its acts are Egyptian. They kill innocent Egyptian civilians and they strike at the armed forces that are protecting Egyptian security. “Beit Al-Maqdis” means nothing to that group. The name is just a mask. The terrorist acts perpetrated by this group are clearly coordinated with the aims of the mother organisation, as Muslim Brotherhood leaders, themselves, made perfectly clear when they stated, in front of the press and television cameras, that terrorism would stop the moment that their president was restored to power. Now that local Muslim Brotherhood leaders have been arrested, their central command has shifted abroad, to the International Muslim Brotherhood, and it is palpably clear that it is using every faction and movement that it controls and funds to carry out its plans. Those plans do not involve the liberation of Jerusalem, ending the Zionist occupation or even countering US pressures. Rather, they involve a campaign of violence and terror that has set its crosshairs on the Egyptian people. It is a campaign meant to undermine their will, coerce them into sacrificing their 30 June Revolution, and force them to bow to a return of the Muslim Brotherhood regime. Naturally, the campaign will not succeed. But, need one ask what the connection is between the Muslim Brothers and that other terrorist group?
