Jordan Cracks Down on Muslim Brotherhood

Jordan’s Interior Ministry said on Wednesday that it would enforce a widespread ban on the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group that has been outlawed in several other Arab countries.The announcement came a week after Jordanian security services said that they had arrested 16 people accused of plotting threats to national security involving weapons, explosives and plans to manufacture drones and train combatants, both at home and abroad.The Jordanian interior minister, Mazin Al Farrayeh, suggested in a televised news conference on Wednesday that the plot was connected to the group, saying “elements of the Muslim Brotherhood” had “worked in darkness to carry out activities that undermine stability and tamper with security and national unity.”He said explosives and weapons had been discovered and added that the night the plot was announced, the Muslim Brotherhood had “tried to smuggle and destroy a large number of documents.” He also said authorities had discovered an explosives manufacturing operation connected to a son of one of the group’s leaders.Jordan had already taken steps toward disbanding the Muslim Brotherhood in a 2020 court decision, and had closed the group’s headquarters in the capital, Amman, in 2016.It was not immediately clear how the new ban would affect the Islamic Action Front, a political arm of the Brotherhood, which formed a coalition that won 31 out of 138 seats in a parliamentary election last year and made opposition to the Israeli invasion of Gaza the centerpiece of its campaign.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....