The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) an Israeli think-tank, has published a history of Islamist groups in Lebanon that includes a section on the Lebanese Muslim Brotherhood founded and led by Faisal Mawlawi, an important leader of the global Muslim Brotherhood. According to the ICT report:
….the 1964 establishment of the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, known as al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya (the Islamic Association), marked a watershed in several respects. Led by Tripoli natives Fathi Yakan and Faysal Mawlawi, al-Jama’a saw the pursuit of an Islamic state as a viable (if long-term and incremental) political project and a counter to the burgeoning appeal of secular Arab nationalism as the ideology of choice for disaffected young Sunnis.
Mawlawi is closely associated with Youssef Qaradawi, the leader of the global Muslim Brotherhood. He is the the Deputy Chairman of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, the theological body headed by Youssef Qaradawi as well as a trustee of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, also headed by Qaradawi. In addition. Mawlawi is a trustee of the Union of Good, a worldwide collection of Islamic charities chaired by Qaradawi that appear to be raising funs for Hamas. In August 2005, Mideast news sources reported that “combatants” from the Islamic Group were fighting alongside Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon and that the group’s support of Hezbollah dated back to the 1980’s. This is the only known instance of armed Muslim Brotherhood units operating openly since the 1940’s.