Overview
Mohammad Hekmat Walid has served as the leader, or the “comptroller general,” of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria since November 2014.Agence France-Presse, “Syria Muslim Brotherhood appoints new leader,” Al Monitor, November 7, 2014, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/ar/contents/afp/2014/11/syria-conflict-islam-politics-opposition.html. Hailing from Latakia, Syria, Walid is the 12th leader of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood since the group’s founding in 1945. He is an ophthalmologist by training and is reported to have studied in the United Kingdom.“The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, accessed May 16, 2016, http://carnegieendowment.org/syriaincrisis/?fa=48370;
Hazem Kandil, Inside the Brotherhood (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity Press, 2015), 154, “Q&A: ‘We want to build a new Syria,’” Al Jazeera, May 26, 2015, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2015/01/qa-want-build-new-syria-20151146413892728.html.
Walid left Syria in the 1970sDasha Afanasieva, “Banned in Syria, Muslim Brotherhood members trickle home,” Reuters, May 7, 2015, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-brotherhood-idUSKBN0NR20Y20150507. and was a long-time resident of Saudi Arabia Raphaël Lefèvre, “New Leaders for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood,” Carnegie Middle East Center, December 11, 2014, http://carnegie-mec.org/2014/12/11/new-leaders-for-syrian-muslim-brotherhood. before moving to Istanbul, Turkey, around 2014.Raphaël Lefèvre, “New Leaders for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood,” Carnegie Middle East Center, December 11, 2014, http://carnegie-mec.org/2014/12/11/new-leaders-for-syrian-muslim-brotherhood. In March 2014, he was elected head of the Brotherhood’s Waad political party in Syria.Raphaël Lefèvre, “New Leaders for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood,” Carnegie Middle East Center, December 11, 2014, http://carnegie-mec.org/2014/12/11/new-leaders-for-syrian-muslim-brotherhood. That November, Walid officially left the Waad party and was elected general comptroller of the Syrian Brotherhood.“Mohamed Hikmat Walid Elected Comptroller-General for Syria Muslim Brotherhood,” Ikhwanweb: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Official English web site, November 7, 2014, http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=31886;
Raphaël Lefèvre, “New Leaders for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood,” Carnegie Middle East Center, December 11, 2014, http://carnegie-mec.org/2014/12/11/new-leaders-for-syrian-muslim-brotherhood.
In mid-2015, Walid told Reuters in an interview that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was encouraging its members—many of whom had been in exile in Turkey since the 1980s—to return to Syria and re-establish the group there amid the Syrian civil war.Dasha Afanasieva, “Banned in Syria, Muslim Brotherhood members trickle home,” Reuters, May 7, 2015, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-brotherhood-idUSKBN0NR20Y20150507. According to Brotherhood analyst Raphaël Lefèvre, Walid is known for his “diplomatic skills and compromising spirit.”Raphaël Lefèvre, “New Leaders for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood,” Carnegie Middle East Center, December 11, 2014, http://carnegie-mec.org/2014/12/11/new-leaders-for-syrian-muslim-brotherhood.
Associated Groups
- Extremist entity
- Muslim Brotherhood
- Read Threat Report
- Type(s) of Organization:
- Non-state actor, political, religious, social service provider, transnational
- Ideologies and Affiliations:
- Islamist, jihadist, pan-Islamist, Qutbist, Sunni, takfirist
- Position(s):
- Comptroller general of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood
The Muslim Brotherhood is a transnational Sunni Islamist movement that seeks to implement sharia (Islamic law) under a global caliphate. Founded in Egypt in 1928, the Brotherhood is the country’s oldest Islamist organization and has branches throughout the world.
History
Daily Dose
Extremists: Their Words. Their Actions.
In Their Own Words:
When you’re dealing with a certain type of character, they’ll push their body right into your hand…and that’s when you strike. Second thing, I would say strike first.
Sep. 2020