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ARTICLE IN BRIEF:
Much of the discussion regarding the situation in Syria has focused on the rise of Islamic extremists, to the detriment of another trend of the past months: the slow rebirth of the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and its claims to support 'centrist' rebel groups on the ground. This article provides an overview of the group's history, before moving on to analyze its military influence in the current Syrian crisis
Despite its importance and a rich local history, very little has been written about the Muslim Brotherhood's 30-year struggle against the regime in Syria. Based for decades outside of Syria, where the law condemns any known member of the organization to the death penalty, the Brotherhood has taken advantage of the chaos of the past three years to rebuild some of its past networks inside the country in order to position itself as a growing actor on the ground.
Most of the academic literature on the subject dates back to the 1980s, when the organization was temporarily crushed in Hama after an uprising was brutally repressed by the Syrian security forces.1 Recent years have renewed academic and journalistic interest in the secretive Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, but most reports still focus more on the group's influence over exiled opposition bodies such as the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the National Coalition than on its actual role in the struggle on the ground.2 Yet the issue matters, given the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood's flirtation with extremism in the late 1970s, its subsequent claims to have changed, and its recent declarations that it is now supporting "moderate" rebel groups inside the country.
This article aims at examining whether the Muslim Brotherhood is waging a "centrist" jihad in Syria. It will start by giving an overview of the group's history and, in particular, of its past struggle with the regime, before moving on to analyze its military influence in the current Syrian crisis. It will seek to situate the Brotherhood's rebirth within the framework of Syrian Islamist politics and, in particular, to depict its role in the recent rebel infighting between the "moderate" rebels and their more extremist counterparts. The article will go on to argue that, even though it is in the Brotherhood's...