The Arab monarchy had already taken steps toward disbanding the Islamist group in a 2020 court decision, but said it would now move to completely ban its activities.
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.
Opponents of the Brotherhood argue it is a dangerous group that paves the way toward religious extremism and violence. Supporters, as well as some scholars, argue that authoritarian states across the Middle East have targeted the group because they see Islamist political mobilization as the greatest threat to their own grip on power.
