Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘grand jihad’ grows north of the border

In a chilling internal memo, the Muslim Brotherhood laid out its long-term strategy to conquer North America through what it called a “civilization-jihadist process” aimed at “sabotaging” and “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.”

The detailed 18-page document, written in 1991, surfaced in 2007 during the Holy Land Foundation trial — the largest terrorism financing case in US history.

More than three decades later, the Brotherhood’s strategy is no longer theoretical. It is materializing just north of the US border in Canada.

The Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Sunni Islamist movement founded in Egypt in 1928, is committed to establishing a global caliphate governed by sharia, an often extreme set of laws on a range of religious and societal matters that Muslims believe was given to them by God. 

Though often cloaked in the language of charity and civil society, the Brotherhood’s true objective remains Islamist dominance — something its leaders have repeatedly emphasized.

Indeed, the group’s founder Hassan al-Banna once declared, “It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”

And while the Brotherhood renounced violence in the 1970s, its ideology is broadly seen as a “stepping stone” to violent jihad.

Its teachings provided the foundation for jihadist groups like Hamas and al Qaeda and inspired notorious terrorists like Osama bin Laden, Islamic State founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.

State actors like Qatar and Turkey strategically lend the Brotherhood substantial support, giving it the resources and legitimacy needed to expand its influence across the West.

In Canada, though, these realities are almost entirely absent from public conversation or debate.

The country’s shockingly permissive immigration policies, multiculturalist ethos and general complacency toward national security threats have made it fertile ground for the Brotherhood’s insidious ambitions. 

Brotherhood-affiliated organizations have proliferated in Canada for decades, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy warned last month, methodically expanding and spreading radical Islamist ideology without fear of repercussion.

These organizations, often posing as benign religious or charitable entities, have built an extensive infrastructure of mosques, schools and community centers across the country — with the help of significant taxpayer funds.

Senior Brotherhood leadership in Canada has reportedly encouraged followers to take up key government positions to push policies in line with sharia.

This strategy mirrors the Brotherhood’s operations in Europe — and there, authorities have begun to take notice.

A recently leaked French government report described the Brotherhood’s European activities as a political project designed to gradually transform democratic societies through “strategic ambiguity.”

The report warned of the Brotherhood’s duplicitous nature — charming in public, conniving in private — and of its aspirations, which are fundamentally at odds with democratic pluralism. The British government reached similar conclusions in a 2015 investigative review. 

In Canada, these warnings have gone largely unheeded. Politicians fear losing the increasingly important Muslim vote, and dread being labeled “Islamophobic,” the most feared word in the country.

As a consequence, the country is witnessing troubling symptoms of burgeoning extremism.

Antisemitic incidents in Canada spiked by a staggering 670% in 2024, and the 83 terrorism-related charges filed between April 2023 and March 2024 represented a 488% jump.

Those figures, along with the increasingly menacing nature of pro-Hamas demonstrations and widespread youth radicalization, all point to the Brotherhood’s growing grip on the ideological landscape.

And they pose serious ramifications for US national security.

The porous northern border, combined with Canada’s lax immigration vetting procedures, creates an ideal launch pad for extremist cross-border propaganda and recruitment — and even terror operations.

Last year, for instance, a Pakistani national was arrested as he attempted to enter the United States via Quebec to carry out an ISIS-inspired mass attack on the Jewish community in New York. 

A new bill in Congress seeks to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization — but it would mean little to continental security if Canada doesn’t follow suit.

North America urgently needs a coordinated response.

The United States must press Canada to blacklist Brotherhood front groups masquerading as religious and charitable organizations, and to scrutinize its activists’ and ideologues’ activities. 

Further, US authorities should pay closer attention to a wide range of cross-border activities that could have Brotherhood connections — including academic exchange programs, live speaking events and asset transfers.

The Canadian fentanyl threat that President Donald Trump decries pales in comparison to the Muslim Brotherhood’s aspirations of a North American Islamic caliphate.

Trump must get Canada to prevent its Islamist threat from metastasizing further — or risk the United States becoming collateral damage in the Brotherhood’s “grand jihad.” 

Casey Babb is an adviser with Secure Canada and director of the Promised Land Project at Ottawa’s Macdonald-Laurier Institute, where Joe Adam George is a national-security analyst.