• • American Day of Reckoning for Muslim Brotherhood?

The Muslim Brotherhood's sigh of relief after being rescued by Secretary of State Tillersonand National Security Adviser McMaster has been replaced by a sweaty panic.

With Tillerson out and Pompeo in and McMaster's days numbered, it is now probable that the Muslim Brotherhood will finally be designated by the State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, paving the way for its infrastructure in America to begin being dismantled.

Groups associated with the Muslim Brotherhood network like the Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamaat ul-Fuqra are likely to see a similar fate. President Trump's desire to pressure Pakistan and more closely ally with India adds to the likelihood that these Pakistani-led groups will be blacklisted.

The incoming secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, was one of the earliest cosponsors of the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act when he was a member of Congress. Now, as secretary of state, he has the authority to designate Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs).

The newest version of the legislation is backed by 75 members of the House of Representatives and the Senate version introduced by Senator Ted Cruz has 4 cosponsors
 

Now, most of the Trump Administration's top officials are staunch foes of the Brotherhood, including:

• Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was one of the few early cosponsors of the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act when he was a Senator.
• Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who was forced to withdraw a senior appointment he desired who was a strong ally of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. However, he has articulately made the case for identifying the enemy as "political Islam" and described the negative impact of the Obama Administration's friendly attitude towards the Brotherhood.
• Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney, who was a cosponsor of the legislation when he was a congressman.
• Senior adviser and chief speechwriter Stephen Miller
• National Security Council's Deputy Assistant to the President for Strategic Communications Michael Anton
• Senior White House Adviser to the Department of Homeland Security Frank Wuco
• Senior Department of Homeland Security Adviser Katharine Gorka (who is the wife of former Deputy Assistant to the President Dr. Sebastian Gorka)

It is almost universally reported that National Security Adviser McMaster is about to be replaced, despite Trump's denials (just like his denials before Tillerson was fired).

The leading candidate for his job is former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, another known supporter of FTO designation for the Brotherhood.

Trump's pick for CIA Director, Gina Haspel, is presumably on the same page because Pompeo recommended her. However, she is expected to have a fight ahead of her to get confirmed by the Senate.

U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley's position is not known. She previously struck a neutral tone when asked about designating the Brotherhood, stopping short of defending Tillerson and McMaster's known positions at the time, saying, "That is not something that has been discussed within the administration."

Outside of the White House, President Trump is back to consulting with his former Deputy Assistant Dr. Sebastian Gorka, a passionate voice for designating the Brotherhood as an FTO.

Pompeo's appointment represents a stunning reversal of fortune for the Muslim Brotherhood, which previously succeeded in getting plans for such a designation shelved. One Brotherhood official said the Islamist group had spent $5 million to lobby officials and influence the media. Brotherhood apologists even succeeded in influencing CIA assessments that conveniently leaked to the media.

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PARIS, March 24 (Reuters) - France was in mourning on Saturday for a French security officer who died from gunshot wounds after voluntarily taking the place of a female hostage during a supermarket siege by an Islamist militant.

Arnaud Beltrame, 44, a gendarme who once served in Iraq, had been raced to hospital fighting for his life after being shot by the gunman during the siege at the Super U store in the southwestern town of Trebes near the Pyrenees mountains.

"He fell as a hero, giving up his life to halt the murderous outfit of a jihadist terrorist," President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement shortly before dawn on Saturday.

Friday's attacker was identified by authorities as Redouane Lakdim, a 25-year-old Moroccan-born French national from the city of Carcassonne, not far from Trebes, a tranquil town of about 5,000 people where he struck Friday afternoon.

Lakdim was known to authorities for drug-dealing and other petty crimes, but had also been under surveillance by security services in 2016-2017 for links to the radical Salafist movement, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said on Friday.

The attacker, whose rampage began when he fired on a group of police joggers and also shot the occupants of a car he stole, killed three people and injured 16 others on Friday, according to a government readout.

Beltrame's death takes the number killed to four.