A Washington Advocacy Group Names the Two Brotherhood Officials It Wants Sanctioned Next

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an openly hawkish Washington think tank, published “Treasury Extends Its Muslim Brotherhood Campaign to Europe” on 24 July, a day after OFAC designated four individuals and three entities under Executive Order 13224. The piece argues that al-Abyari — whom Treasury describes as a United Kingdom-based senior Egyptian Brotherhood leader and Secretary General of the Muslim Brotherhood General Secretariat — “should not be the last Brotherhood official designated by Treasury,” and names Acting General Guide Saleh Abdel Haq and spokesperson Osama Suleiman as the officials Washington should target next. Treasury’s own framing on 23 July was broader and vaguer: Secretary Scott Bessent said that “whether operating under the guise of charities, businesses, or underground financial networks, those who enable Hamas will be exposed, sanctioned, and held accountable.”

The same constituency is also filling in the parts of the action Treasury did not publish. FDD’s Long War Journal reported on 27 July that El-Kahira for General Trading, the designated Türkiye-based entity, transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars for Hamas, and that its owner and shareholders separately laundered funds for organised-crime networks including the Swedish network Foxtrot — attributing both claims to Treasury. Neither the dollar figure nor the Foxtrot link appears in the portions of press release SB0572 THE FILES retrieved, and neither should be treated as confirmed. What SB0572 does say is that the action “reflects close coordination with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Customs and Border Protection.” The DEA’s presence in a Brotherhood finance case is unusual.

In London, where al-Abyari resides, the Brotherhood remains legal and no government response to the designation had surfaced by 30 July. The standing British position was set out in a Lords exchange in January, when Lord Walney, a crossbench peer and former government extremism adviser, pressed for reassurance that ministers “recognise the threat that the Muslim Brotherhood and related organisations pose to this country.” Home Office minister Lord Flint replied that “a wide range of offences and powers can be used to counter the threat from extremism,” listing charity regulation, broadcasting, education and immigration powers alongside encouragement-of-terrorism and public-order offences. The New Statesman’s July reported feature named the Henry Jackson Society as leading the proscription campaign, and quoted an unnamed HJS researcher conceding that full proscription under the Terrorism Act 2000 “would likely affect individuals who were once members and have sought asylum here.”

Assessment: A published target list is not a policy document, but it is a useful instrument. It tells you which names the designation constituency believes are already documented enough to survive OFAC’s evidentiary review, and it puts pressure on Treasury by making inaction visible. Distrust the drift in the other direction: details that enter circulation as “Treasury said” without appearing in the release, of which the Foxtrot claim is this week’s example. The British silence is the more telling variable. Lord Flint’s answer describes a disruption toolkit built precisely so that proscription need never be decided, and an American sanction on a London resident is the first thing that makes that evasion costly.