Rifts hitting hard at Brotherhood as rival camps lock horns
Rifts rocked the Muslim Brotherhood, following the downfall of its regime in Egypt in 2013 and the escape of its leaders and senior members to other countries.
In
2016, Muhammad Montasser, a spokesman for the Brotherhood's Youth Front, defected
from the movement and formed a parallel group.
He
sought independence from the senior members of the movement, including then
acting supreme guide Mahmud Ezzat who was arrested by Egyptian authorities in
August 2020.
Rifts
Despite
the Brotherhood's unity for many decades in the past, the movement is finally
breaking up into two groups.
Each
of these groups wants to control the other as well as the organization's
leadership.
Divisions
within the Brotherhood were sparked by divergent views on developments outside
the organization.
Muhammad
Kamal, who took over responsibility for the administrative offices of the
Brotherhood, following the imprisonment of its leaders and the founder of its armed
wing, wanted to steer the organization into a course of violence.
He
wanted the movement's members to attack state institutions and maintain
protests on the streets.
This
pitted him against Ezzat who wanted the organization to pursue his ideology.
Ezzat
believed that the Brotherhood should take a step backwards to prepare itself
well for confrontation with the state.
Taking
a step back, he said, does not mean that the Brotherhood would abdicate its
violent tools.
However,
Kamal rejected any going back. His followers, mostly junior Brotherhood
members, also rejected this.
