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Jordan Outlaws Muslim Brotherhood, Confiscates Assets and Offices
Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak
Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets on Wednesday after members of the Islamist group were found to be linked to a sabotage plot, Interior Minister Mazen Fraya said.
There was no immediate comment from the movement, which has operated legally in Jordan for decades and has widespread grass-roots support in major urban centers and scores of offices across the country.
Jordan said last week it had arrested 16 Muslim Brotherhood members, saying they were trained and financed in Lebanon and were plotting attacks involving rockets and drones on targets inside the kingdom. Jordan also attributed a foiled plot in 2024 to a Muslim Brotherhood cell in Jordan.
Fraya said all the activities of the group would be banned and anyone promoting its ideology would be held accountable by law. The ban includes publishing anything by the group and closure and confiscation of all its offices and property, he added.
Scores of security personnel, acting on an order from the public prosecutor, raided Muslim Brotherhood offices and began searching for documents, officials said, adding that some had already been removed or destroyed in an apparent attempt to conceal evidence.
The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has denied links to the alleged plot but admitted members may have engaged in an individual capacity in arms smuggling to Palestinians in the West Bank.
Opponents of the Brotherhood, which is outlawed in most Arab countries, call it a dangerous terrorist group that should be crushed. The movement says it publicly renounced violence decades ago and pursues an Islamist vision using peaceful means.
‘FINAL DIVORCE’
“Today, there is no longer any banner bearing the name of the Muslim Brotherhood. This marks a final divorce between the state and the Brotherhood after decades of fluctuating between co-opting them and merely tolerating their presence,” said Mohammed Khair Rawashdeh, a political analyst.
Rawashdeh added that he expected the Jordanian authorities to take further steps to root out the Brotherhood.
The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.
Fraya said Muslim Brotherhood members had planned attacks on security targets and sensitive locations in Jordan, aiming to destabilize the country, but did not identify the targets.
Security forces said last week they had found a rocket manufacturing facility alongside a drone factory where short-range rockets were being developed, with at least one missile ready to be launched.
In a country where anti-Israel sentiment runs high, Muslim Brotherhood members have led some of the largest protests in the region in support of Hamas, their ideological allies, in what their opponents say allowed them to increase their popularity.
Like some of its neighbors seeking to curb political Islam, Jordan has been tightening restrictions on the Brotherhood in the last two years, forbidding some of its activities and arresting vocal anti-government dissenters.
International rights groups say that in the last four years Jordanian authorities have intensified persecution and harassment of political opponents and ordinary citizens using a string of laws to silence critical voices.
The Jordanian government says it tolerates public speech that does not incite violence.
The post Jordan Outlaws Muslim Brotherhood, Confiscates Assets and Offices first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘With or Without Russia’s Help’: Iran Pledges to Block South Caucasus Route Opened Up By Peace Deal
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – Iran will block the establishment of a US-backed transit corridor in the South Caucasus region with or without Moscow’s help, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader was quoted as saying on Saturday by the Iran International website, one day after the historic peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“Mr. Trump thinks the Caucasus is a piece of real estate he can lease for 99 years,” Ali Akbar Velayati said of the so-called Zangezur corridor, the establishment of which is stipulated in the peace deal unveiled on Friday by US President Donald Trump. The White House said the transit route would facilitate greater exports of energy and other resources.
“This passage will not become a gateway for Trump’s mercenaries — it will become their graveyard,” the Khamenei advisor added.
Baku and Yerevan have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting or forcing almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
Yet that painful history was put to the side on Friday at the White House, as Trump oversaw a signing ceremony, flanked by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The peace deal with Azerbaijan—a pro-Western ally of Israel—is expected to pull Armenia out of the Russian and Iranian sphere of influence and could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region neighboring Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran.
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UK Police Arrest 150 at Protest for Banned Palestine Action Group
People holding signs sit during a rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, August 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
London’s Metropolitan Police said on Saturday it had arrested 150 people at a protest against Britain’s decision to ban the group Palestine Action, adding it was making further arrests.
Officers made arrests after crowds, waving placards expressing support for the group, gathered in Parliament Square, the force said on X.
Protesters, some wearing black and white Palestinian scarves, chanted “shame on you” and “hands off Gaza,” and held signs such as “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” video taken by Reuters at the scene showed.
In July, British lawmakers banned Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged planes in protest against Britain’s support for Israel.
The ban makes it a crime to be a member of the group, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
The co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, last week won a bid to bring a legal challenge against the ban.
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‘No Leniency’: Iran Announces Arrest of 20 ‘Zionist Agents’
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi addresses a special session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 20, 2025. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
i24 News – Iranian authorities have in recent months arrested 20 people charged with being “Israeli Mossad operatives,” the judiciary said, adding that the Islamic regime will mete out the harshest punishments.
“The judiciary will show no leniency toward spies and agents of the Zionist regime, and with firm rulings, will make an example of them all,” spokesperson Asghar Jahangiri told Iranian media. However, it is understood that an unspecified number of detainees were released, apparently after the charges against them could not be substantiated.
The Islamic Republic was left reeling by a devastating 12-day war with Israel earlier in the summer that left a significant proportion of its military arsenal in ruins and dealt a serious setback to its uranium enrichment program. The fallout included an uptick in executions of Iranians convicted of spying for Israel, with at least eight death sentences carried out in recent months. Hit with international sanctions, the country is in dire economic straights, with frequent energy outages and skyrocketing unemployment.
In recent weeks Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi affirmed that Tehran cannot give up on its nuclear enrichment program even as it was severely damaged during the war.
“It is stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe. But obviously we cannot give up of enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists. And now, more than that, it is a question of national pride,” the official told Fox News.