Unfolding developments signaled that one of Egypt’s most feared terror groups, the Muslim Brotherhood, could be heading towards total collapse as media leaks exposed a widening rift pitting the organization’s imprisoned youth against its leadership abroad.
Leaked documents revealed demands made by Brotherhood officials and youth in captivity from fugitive leaders abroad and uncovered the splintered reality the organization has come to.
Many of the group’s senior officials were rounded up and sent to jail in Egypt for committing violence inspired by the Brotherhood’s radical ideology.
One of the most vocally expressed demands was the need to bail captured Brotherhood members out of jail and then move towards a badly needed revision of post-radicalization principles and values they had acquired.
Amro Abdellmeneim, an Egypt-based expert on fundamentalist movements, told Asharq Al-Awsat in a phone interview that “the documents revealed the size of differences within the group.”
In an initiative, a group called "1350" filed for amnesty and said its members will rethink the values they learned from the Brotherhood.
1350’s initiative had especially angered Brotherhood leaders abroad, prompting Mahmoud Hussein, the group’s Secretary-General, to completely deny the existence of such mobilizations.
Saying that such movements do not belong to the organization, Hussein accused them of seeking to “break the will and stability of the Brotherhood members abroad and in prisons as well.”
Brotherhood youths in Turkey, for their part, suggested bailing out imprisoned comrades through the formation of a nonprofit. Bail was set at $5,000 per prisoner.
Another initiative was proposed by another affiliate formed from Brotherhood members in Turkey and Qatar, and recommended a full revision and reform of the group’s ideology. This followed corruption scandals tied to the group’s leaders who happen to be receiving funds abroad whilst abandoning the imprisoned youth in Egypt.
Brotherhood media spokesman Talaat Fahmy, for his part, said the initiatives presented “a step backwards and meant dissolving the organization,” something he noted as “totally rejected.”
