Lebanon’s Own Laws Require Disarming Muslim Brotherhood Branch Designated by U.S. as Terror Group

The United States took aim at Islamic Group (IG), the Muslim Brotherhood’s Lebanese branch on January 13. The U.S. State Department designated IG as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and designated both the organization and its Secretary-General Mohammad Fawzi Taqqoush as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT) — a complementary status that entails broader financial restrictions.

IG’s response effectively called upon Lebanon to disregard the designation, describing it as a mere “American political and administrative decision, with no Lebanese or international juridical basis, and therefore lacking legal effect within Lebanon.” IG said Beirut’s next steps, if any, should rely exclusively on its “sole authority, which remains the Lebanese Constitution, relevant laws, and State institutions.”

But these Lebanese legal documents — both their plain meaning and their current interpretation by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s government — require IG’s military wing, the Dawn Forces (Quwwat Al Fajr), to disarm and end its military cooperation with other armed groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.

Islamic Group Is Currently a Legal Entity in Lebanon

Islamic Group is, as its response to Tuesday’s designation states, a “licensed Lebanese political and social component, operating openly and legally” in the political, parliamentary, and social realms, and is unimpeded by any Lebanese judicial decision. The organization operates several social, charitable, and media institutions and even a political party.

While legal, IG’s parliamentary presence has always been miniscule. The group won three of 128 seats during its first election in 1992, dropping four years later to the one seat it has intermittently held since then. This showing reflects IG’s minimal cachet among Lebanon’s Sunnis. This community consistently polls as the region’s least interested in any form of political Islam — including IG’s program of persuasively increasing Islamic law’s influence over Lebanese decision-making.

U.S. Designations Target Actions, not Ideology

The main justification for designating IG is the existence and conduct of its military arm, the Dawn Forces. Seemingly dormant for years, the Dawn Forces reentered the scene after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, repeatedly targeting northern Israel with rocket barrages in explicit coordination with Hezbollah and Hamas’s Lebanese branch.

This coordination stemmed from the Dawn Forces’ decades-long ties with Hamas, and its equally lengthy, if periodically fitful, relationship with Hezbollah. The organization has also maintained close ties with other militant organizations, including the Democratic Front for the Liberation for Palestine (DFLP) and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Dawn Forces’ activities also run afoul of the Lebanese laws with which IG claims it is complying. The 1989 Taif Agreement, integrated into Lebanon’s constitutional framework after ending its 15-year civil war, explicitly requires “disbanding of all Lebanese … militias,” and the surrender of their arms to the state “within a period six months” of the agreement’s adoption.

During the 1990s, Dawn Forces skirted this obligation with Hezbollah’s assistance as part of the so-called “resistance organization” exception that Syria forced Lebanon to read into the Taif Agreement — an interpretation Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Salam and his government purport reject. Incidentally, IG is now repaying Hezbollah’s earlier favor, backing the Shiite organization’s position of addressing the question of its arsenal through consensual dialogue regarding a national security and defense strategy.

Additionally, Lebanon’s international obligations — as embodied in, among other documents, UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and the November 27, 2024, Israel-Lebanon ceasefire agreement — would also require the Dawn Forces to disarm and disband.

Pushing Lebanon To Uphold Its Laws

Lebanon now claims it is committed to implementing these obligations, promising to monopolize force in the hands of the state’s official security apparatuses. The United States can leverage this commitment, which entails the Dawn Forces’ disarmament as part of the Lebanese Armed Forces’ so-called Homeland Shield plan — adopted, if ambiguously, on September 25, 2025 — to disarm all militias. Given IG’s minimal social support and Dawn Forces’ relatively small size, Washington can expect Lebanese action on this front as a baseline demonstration of Beirut’s seriousness to end all terrorist activity within its territory.

David Daoud is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he focuses on Israel, Hezbollah, and Lebanon affairs. For more analysis from David and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow David on X @DavidADaoud. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.