A destroyed highrise building in Khartoum, Sudan, in January, 2025.EBRAHIM HAMID/AFP/Getty Images
The Trump administration says it will designate the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, accusing it of receiving training and other support from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
The Muslim Brotherhood is among the Islamist groups supporting Sudan’s military in its three-year war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a conflict that has engulfed the country, killing hundreds of thousands and forcing millions to flee.
Many Sudanese groups, including in Canada, have been demanding a terrorist designation for the RSF, formerly known as the Janjaweed, which is accused of widespread atrocities. A report last month by United Nations investigators said the RSF had committed massacres and other genocidal acts in the Darfur region of western Sudan.
Instead, the Trump administration announced Monday that it will impose the designation on the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood, effective March 16.
The Islamist group has contributed more than 20,000 fighters to the war in Sudan, according to the U.S. State Department.
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“The Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood uses unrestrained violence against civilians to undermine efforts to resolve the conflict in Sudan and advance its violent Islamist ideology,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
“Its fighters, many receiving training and other support from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, have conducted mass executions of civilians.”
In addition to the training it allegedly provided, Iran is widely reported to have supplied drones and other weapons to the Sudanese military in the early months of the war, which erupted in April, 2023.
Under the terrorist designation, the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood will be denied access to the U.S. financial system. Its assets in the United States will be blocked, and U.S. citizens will be prohibited from conducting business with it.
“The United States will use all available tools to deprive the Iranian regime and Muslim Brotherhood chapters of the resources to engage in or support terrorism,” Mr. Rubio said.
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U.S. Republican Senator Jim Risch, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the foreign terrorist designation is a vital step to curb the influence of hardline Islamists. “Now we must also seriously consider the same … designation for the genocidal Rapid Support Forces and their terror campaign in Sudan,” he said in a statement Monday.
The United Arab Emirates, which reportedly provides weapons to the RSF, has been sounding the alarm about Islamist influences in Sudan’s military for years. On Monday, its Foreign Affairs Ministry said it welcomed the U.S. terrorist designation for the Muslim Brotherhood. The UAE has denied any links to the RSF, but human-rights groups and many other analysts have cited the connections.
Cameron Hudson, a U.S.-based analyst of U.S.-Africa issues, said on social media that the lobbying in Washington for the terrorist designation for the Muslim Brotherhood was “fuelled and funded by Israel and Emirati sources” who finally achieved their goal by linking it to the Iran conflict.
Some analysts are worried that the designation is too vague, lacking any clear definition of who exactly will face sanctions, since the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood is not a formal group but a loose coalition.
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The designation could also make it difficult for mediators to negotiate a ceasefire or humanitarian truce between RSF leaders and Sudan’s military chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
“Hardline factions within Burhan’s fragile alliance, who have always argued for ‘no negotiation with the RSF,’ will push him now to ignore the U.S. and other potential mediators and go all out,” said Nicholas Coghlan, a former senior Canadian diplomat in Sudan.
The hardliners might argue that “they have nothing further to lose by holding back,” Mr. Coghlan told The Globe and Mail.
Another complication of the designation is the potential impact on relief agencies, which have already expressed fears that Western sanctions and counterterrorism measures could jeopardize humanitarian aid by creating regulatory ambiguity for financial institutions and blocking bank transfers.
“The international banking system will now be leery of dealing with Sudan on any basis, lest the U.S. Treasury determine such action as illegal,” Mr. Coghlan said.