Islamist leaders from various countries, including some that house operations by the terror-linked Muslim Brotherhood (MB), mourned the death of Egypt’s toppled President Mohamed Morsi, who died from a heart attack during a court appearance in Cairo on Monday.
Leaders from Turkey, Qatar, Iran, Malaysia, and Pakistan, as well as the U.S.-designated Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, lamented the death of Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically-elected president and a prominent MB leader.
Before his demise, Morsi spent six years in prison after Egypt’s then-military chief, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, led the public movement that ousted the MB chief in July 2013.
Sisi is now the president of Egypt, which — along with Russia and Muslim-majority Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain — have deemed the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is weighing a similar designation for MB, which has spawned jihadis and offshoots like Hamas that rely on violence to achieve their goals.
Since it came into existence in Egypt in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood has been trying to establish a sharia-compliant global caliphate by changing existing governments and societies from within, internal documents made public revealed.
Some of the leaders who mourned Morsi hail from at least four countries that Breitbart News determined in May 2019 have allowed MB to freely operate within its borders: Iraq, Turkey, Qatar, and Israel’s Palestinian Territories.
Iraq
On Tuesday, Iraqi Kurdistan’s Rudaw news outlet reported that “Islamic party leaders in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region have paid tribute” to Morsi following his death.
Echoing the position of the Muslim Brotherhood, which accused the Sisi administration of assassinating Morsi, Ali Qaradaghi, the Kurdish head of the MB-affiliated International Union of Islamic Scholars, reportedly praised the late-president, saying, “Morsi did not die.”
“Rather, he was slowly killed by the sinner group … He will complain about his oppressors and killers to the powerful Almighty. All this blood won’t be for nothing,” he added.
The Iraqi Islamic Party, an MB branch, reportedly added:
We express our sincere condolences to the brotherly Egyptian people generally, and especially to the family of president Mohammed Morsi, on his passing after prolonged suffering and difficult humanitarian conditions.
The human rights group Amnesty International has urged the Egyptian government to launch an investigation into Morsi’s death and accused the Sisi administration of torturing the ousted president.
Turkey
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan praised Morsi as “a martyr who died struggling for his cause,” adding that history will never forget the tyrants who killed him, the state-run Anadolu Agency (AA) reported Tuesday.
Rudaw described Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development (AKP) party as an MB affiliate. Turkey has long served as a hub for the MB, granting asylum to members who were expelled and even providing the Egyptian branch with weapons and intelligence, the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), a non-governmental organization (NGO), found.
Qatar
According to the Egyptian Streets outlet, Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani also bemoaned Morsi’s death, writing on Twitter on Tuesday:
We received with great sorrow the news of the sudden death of former president Dr. Mohamed Morsi. I offer my deepest condolences to his family and Egyptian people. We belong to God, and to him we shall return.
In June 2017, Egypt joined an economic embargo by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain against their fellow Sunni Arab Gulf country Qatar, mainly over Doha’s cozy relationship with Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, considered a terror outfit by Cairo and many of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf.
Israel’s Palestinian Territories
Hamas functions as MB’s official branch in the territories. In a statement carried by Turkey’s AA, the U.S.-designated terror group mourned Morsi’s demise and praised his efforts in favor of the Palestinian cause.
“Morsi engaged in a long struggle for Egypt, its people and the nation’s issues, foremost of which is the Palestinian cause,” the group reportedly declared.
Hamas also indicated that Morsi “made great efforts in defending Jerusalem and al-Aqsa Mosque as a member of Egypt’s parliament.”
Dozens of Palestinians held prayers for Morsi at the al-Aqsa Mosque.
In December 2017, MB, echoing al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), threatened to “wage war” against the United States in response to President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the American Embassy there.
Iran
The Shiite powerhouse also mourned the leader of the Sunni Islamist movement MB, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported Tuesday.
A statement issued Tuesday by Iran’s Foreign Ministry declared:
With due respect for the views of the great and grown Egyptian nation, the Islamic Republic of Iran offers condolences over the death of Dr. Mohamed Morsi to the people (of Egypt), his family, relatives, and fans.
Pakistan
The Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, considered Pakistan’s version of MB, bemoaned Morsi’s death, proclaiming that the “Muslim world has lost a true hero,” the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera reported Tuesday.
In a statement reportedly disseminated on Twitter, the Islamist group’s chief Pakistani Sen. Siraj-ul- Haq declared, “Morsi stood tall in the face of all pressures aimed at forcing him to withdraw his struggle for fundamental rights of the people of Egypt and his support to Palestine.”
Haq vowed to hold funeral prayers in honor of Morsi across Pakistan.
Malaysia
In a statement carried by al Jazeera, Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah expressed condolences for Morsi, saying it was “shocked and saddened by the sudden death” of the MB leader.
“During his tenure as president, Mr. Morsi showed courage and moral fortitude in his attempt to lead Egypt away from decades of authoritarian rule and establish true democracy there,” the minister added.
Leaders from several MB-affiliated groups, namely Tunisia’s Ennahda party, Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, and Egyptian politicians close to the ousted president also paid tribute to the Islamist leader, Al Jazeera noted.
CEP learned that there is significant Islamist ideological overlap between MB and some of the globe’s most violent jihadi groups — the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) and al-Qaeda.
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