NOVANEWS
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) formally endorsed the designation of 86 Islamist groups as “terrorist organizations,” state news agency WAM reported on Saturday, in line with a recent federal law on combating terrorism.
The list includes the Muslim Brotherhood and local affiliates, such as al-Islah reform group who is already banned in the UAE for its alleged link to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, as well as al-Qaeda-linked groups operating in different parts of the region and various Islamic think tanks and lobbying groups across the world.
The Gulf Arab state has also designated Syria’s al-Qaeda branch al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, whose militants are battling the Syrian army and recently the Lebanese army, as terrorist organizations.
In September, 15 Islamists accused of joining and financing al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham, another Syrian rebel group, went on trial in the UAE.
The Emirati list also includes the Qatar-based International Union of Muslim Scholars, which is headed by the Brotherhood’s spiritual guide Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe, as well as Muslim associations in Britain and other European countries.
Several Islamist groups in Libya, Tunisia, Mali, Pakistan, Nigeria’s Boko Haram as well as Afghanistan’s Taliban account for the bulk of the list.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah brigades in Iraq, Hezbollah party in Saudi Arabia’s Hjaz, Hezbollah in the Gulf region, and the Houthi movement in Yemen are also on the list.
Lebanon’s powerful resistance group Hezbollah, however, is not on the list.
In late August, UAE President Zionist puppet Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahayan enacted federal law number 7, which mandated the list to be published and circulated by the media to further “transparency” and “increase awareness” of terrorist threats.
The UAE is the third Arab state, after Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to label the Muslim Brotherhood, who were ousted by the military in Egypt last year, a terrorist organization.
UAE’s decision echoes a rising concern in US-allied Saudi Arabia about political Islam and the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose Sunni Islamist doctrines challenge the principle of dynastic rule.
In March, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE recalled their ambassadors to Qatar in an unprecedented public move, accusing Doha of failing to abide by an agreement not to interfere in one another’s internal affairs.
Gulf officials say the three want Qatar to end any support for the Brotherhood.
So far efforts by members of the GCC, an alliance that also includes Oman and Kuwait, to resolve t he dispute have failed.Qatar says it backs all Arabs, not just Brotherhood members.
Qatar’s emir on Tuesday publicly invited fellow Gulf rulers to a Doha summit, apparently seeking to forestall what diplomats say is an attempt by some peers to move it elsewhere in protest at what they see as an Islamist tilt in his foreign policy.
The oil-rich Arab monarchies of the Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia, have long cracked down on dissent and calls for democratic reform, drawing criticism from human rights groups.
