Saudi Crown Prince promises to eliminate Brotherhood influence

The deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood Dr. Ibrahim Munir has bemoaned Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s pledge to eliminate what is left of the Brotherhood’s ideology.

Munir’s statements to Quds Press came as a response to comments made by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman during an interview with the 60 Minutes programme on American CBS News network, in which he stated that “the Saudi schools have been invaded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, but in the near future they will be completely eliminated”.

Munir considered bin Salman’s comments part “of the ingratitude to the Brotherhood who defended Saudi Arabia and the Gulf during the Nasserist, Baathist and communist movements”.

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He explained that it was the Brotherhood that defended Islam against attacks from the West as well onslaughts from Nasserism and Baathism and that “were it not for the help of God neither Saudi Arabia nor the Gulf would survive”.

The Crown Prince launched an attack on the so-called Sahwa (Awakening) movement, the Saudi branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and said that it had dominated the country for nearly 30 years resulting in a rift between the Middle East and the West.He clarified that before 1979 Saudis lived a “wonderful and natural” life like the rest of the Gulf, for example women were driving cars and going to the cinema but after 1979 a “radical and intolerant Islam [took hold] in the kingdom”.  He insisted that he and his generation were “victims” of that ideology.