Trump under pressure to list Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organisation

Washington

US President Donald Trump's advisers are debating an order intended to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organisation, targeting the oldest and perhaps most influential Islamist group in the Middle East.

A political and social organisation with millions of followers, the Brotherhood officially renounced violence decades ago and won elections in Egypt after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Affiliated groups have joined the political systems in places like Tunisia and Turkey, and former President Barack Obama long resisted pressure to declare it a terrorist organisation.

But the Brotherhood calls for a society governed by Islamic law, and some of its former members and offshoots - most notably Hamas, the Palestinian…