Khaled Meshaal, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, had until recently never visited the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Over the years there had been many justifications – a primary one being that it kept him beyond the Israelis’ range – but the upshot was always that he remained physically separated from...

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On Sunday at least 53 people were killed in clashes between supporters of opponents of Egypt’s former Muslim Brotherhood-linked president Mohammed Morsi. Today at least eight Egyptian security officials were killed over three specific attacks targeting Egyptian security forces. The New York Times described the recent attacks as indicating a...

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The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has scheduled rallies for this Sunday in support of the Egypt’s Brotherhood-linked former President Mohammed Morsi. As part of the Brotherhood’s efforts to mobilize supporters, they have taken to excoriating the Egyptian military that – amid mass nation-wide protests calling for his resignation – acted to...

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The war of words between Hamas and Egypt – which occasionally slips into more than words – seems to be escalating despite efforts by Hamas to prevent its leaders and Gaza-based preachers from antagonizing Cario. AFP earlier this week noted that that Hamas had redoubled such efforts: The Hamas rulers...

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A few months after Ankara violently put down a wave of anti-government protests, Turkey now risks entering a downward spiral where political authoritarianism fuels economic instability, and economic instability fuels more political protests that are put down through authoritarian measures. Observers had already worried over the summer that the government...

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The Egyptian government’s decapitation campaign against the country’s Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood – which has included measures on the national level and even against the Brotherhood’s messaging apparatus – has drawn the ire of the group’s organizational cousins in Jordan. Brothers in Jordan are not only displeased with Cairo’s actions, but...

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The army-backed Egyptian government has been on something of a tear lately in its efforts to uproot the Muslim Brotherhood’s infrastructure and influence in Egypt. Just the last few days have seen the group’s activities banned and asset freezes against its top leaders extended. Today saw the shuttering of the...

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Qatar has in recent years aligned itself with Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood in what increasingly seems like a regional rivalry between three overarching camps: a Qatari/Turkish/Brotherhood bloc, an Iranian-led bloc that includes Syria and Hezbollah, and a bloc made up of Israel and key U.S. Arab allies. In some...

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Last week the Egyptian government extended an asset freeze against the leadership of the country’s Muslim Brotherhood, including against the assets of the group’s Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie and his two deputies Khairat al-Shater and Rashad Bayoumi. The moves came amid an arrest sweep that Washington Institute fellow Eric Trager described...

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Last month Iranian diplomats who spoke to Al-Monitor floated rumors that Hamas was seeking to reestablish close ties with Tehran, after a period that saw the Palestinian terror group drift toward Sunni extremist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood’s decline in Egypt had, according to both those diplomats...

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