Summary
Hamas has evolved from a primarily regional militant group into a transnational jihadist network with growing reach into Europe and the Americas. Investigations in multiple European countries indicate Hamas pre-positioned weapons caches and cooperated with organized crime to enable potential attacks in European capitals, signaling a strategic shift toward external operations.
In Latin America, links between Hamas, Hizbullah, Iranian backing, and Venezuela’s narco-state networks show how terrorism, state sponsorship, and drug trafficking can reinforce each other and threaten U.S. security. Several Middle Eastern governments—especially Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt—treat Hamas and its Muslim Brotherhood parent as major destabilizing forces, underscoring regional recognition of the broader threat.
In the U.S., Muslim Brotherhood-aligned organizations are portrayed as providing an ideological and fundraising ecosystem that helps Hamas persist. The recommended response is a coordinated Western strategy: broader designation of the Muslim Brotherhood, proactive disruption of Hamas infrastructure in Europe, tougher sanctions and interdiction against Iran-Venezuela networks, and an international approach that matches Hamas’s globalized posture.
The October 7 massacre exposed more than Hamas’s capacity for barbarism—it revealed the group’s transformation into an international jihadist network that threatens Western security as directly as it does Israel and the Middle East. While attention naturally focused on Gaza in the attack’s aftermath, European law enforcement was simultaneously uncovering a disturbing reality: Hamas had spent years building a transnational terror infrastructure that extends from the streets of Copenhagen to the cocaine trafficking routes of Venezuela, positioning the organization as a global threat that Western governments can no longer afford to dismiss as a regional concern.
Europe: From Fundraising to Weapons Caches
Recent criminal cases in Germany and Denmark have shattered the illusion that Hamas operations in Europe were limited to fundraising and propaganda. According to investigations detailed by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Hamas operatives had established weapons caches across multiple European countries years before October 7, including small arms stashed in Poland, Bulgaria, Germany, and Denmark. These weren’t improvised contingencies—they were part of deliberate planning for potential attacks in Europe, coordinated by senior Hamas Qassam Brigades leaders operating from Lebanon.
Following October 7, these same leaders sent operatives to locate the pre-positioned weapons while others in Denmark worked with European organized crime groups to procure drones and plot attacks in Denmark or Sweden. German authorities revealed that Hamas had made these weapons available to operatives in Europe specifically in the context of planning the October 7 attacks, demonstrating the integration of European operations into the group’s broader strategic calculus.
This marks a fundamental shift in Hamas’s operational doctrine. The group has never successfully executed a terrorist attack outside Israel, the West Bank, or Gaza—but as its capabilities in Gaza face decimation, European and Israeli officials increasingly fear that Hamas has decided to go global. The weapons caches, the collaboration with criminal networks, and the targeting of European capitals all point to an organization adapting its strategy to pursue external operations when internal capabilities are constrained.
The Venezuela Connection: Drugs, Weapons, and America’s Back Door
While Europe confronts Hamas’s operational infrastructure on its soil, an equally troubling nexus has emerged at America’s back door. In 2020, U.S. federal prosecutors charged Adel El Zabayar, a former Venezuelan National Assembly member and Maduro ally, with narco-terrorism offenses including coordination with both Hizbullah and Hamas. El Zabayar served as a go-between for Venezuela’s Cartel de Los Soles, which sought support from terrorist organizations with the explicit objective of flooding the United States with cocaine.
The criminal complaint detailed how El Zabayar received a Lebanese cargo plane full of military-grade weaponry, including rocket-propelled grenade launchers, AK-103s, and sniper rifles, obtained during his time in the Middle East. Court records described a 2014 meeting at Venezuela’s presidential palace where El Zabayar, Maduro, and others discussed arranging meetings between FARC leaders and the leaders of Hizbullah and Hamas. This wasn’t opportunistic collaboration—it was strategic coordination among America’s adversaries.
Venezuela’s embrace of Hamas predates even these narco-terror operations. In 2006, when Hamas won Palestinian elections and faced isolation from Western governments, Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel announced his country would welcome Hamas leaders “with pleasure,” declaring Venezuela would be among the first to recognize an independent Palestinian state. Under Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela has provided Hamas with diplomatic legitimacy, operational space, and connections to transnational criminal networks.
The convergence of Iranian backing, Venezuelan state sponsorship, and transnational crime creates what national security analysts describe as a force multiplier effect. As a Jewish Institute for National Security of America report notes, Iran—along with its proxy Hizbullah—and Venezuela work in concert to enrich the Iranian regime, strengthen Venezuela’s military capabilities, and facilitate transnational crime that directly threatens the U.S. homeland. Hamas’s integration into this network transforms the group from a regional militia into a node within a global threat matrix.
Middle Eastern Recognition of the Threat
The severity of the Hamas threat is perhaps best understood by examining which governments have moved most decisively against the organization—and it’s not primarily Western nations. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt have all publicly criticized Hamas and designated the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’s parent organization, as a terrorist entity.
The 2017-2021 blockade of Qatar by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt illuminates this dynamic. These countries severed diplomatic ties and imposed a comprehensive land, air, and sea embargo on Qatar explicitly because of Doha’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and its willingness to provide safe haven to Hamas leaders. The blockading states demanded that Qatar stop supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, deport persons hostile to other Gulf Cooperation Council countries—especially Muslim Brotherhood members—and cease its backing of designated terrorist groups.
These are not governments predisposed to align with Israeli security assessments or Western counterterrorism priorities. Yet they reached an independent conclusion that the Muslim Brotherhood network, including Hamas, posed an existential threat to regional stability and their own political systems. When Arab states that don’t designate Hamas itself as a terrorist organization nonetheless view the Brotherhood infrastructure as dangerous enough to warrant a four-year embargo of a fellow Arab state, Western policymakers should take note.
The Muslim Brotherhood Infrastructure in America
Hamas’s global reach extends into the United States through Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations that provide ideological support, fundraising networks, and political cover. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial, exemplifies this challenge.
In November 2025, Texas Governor Greg Abbott designated both CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations—a move that sparked intense debate within the national security community but reflected growing recognition that the Brotherhood’s decentralized network operates through front organizations and allied groups that are difficult to target using conventional counterterrorism tools. President Trump subsequently issued an executive order designating specific Muslim Brotherhood chapters in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
The argument for federal designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as an umbrella organization rests on a straightforward premise: the United States already designates Hamas as a terrorist organization, yet Hamas is merely the Palestinian branch of the Brotherhood. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain have all outlawed the Brotherhood domestically. Yet in America, Brotherhood-linked organizations operate openly, providing the ideological foundation and institutional support that enables groups like Hamas to maintain influence, raise funds, and shape narratives.
The decentralized nature of the Brotherhood—operating under different names in different jurisdictions, with some branches using violence and others maintaining careful distance from explicit terrorist activity—makes comprehensive designation complex. But this complexity cannot become an excuse for inaction. As counterterrorism expert Hans-Jakob Schindler notes, the relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorist violence has always been tactical and geographically limited, allowing the organization to claim protection under freedom of religion and speech in Western countries while supporting violence elsewhere.
A Call for Strategic Coherence
The evidence is clear: Hamas, as the Palestinian branch of the international Muslim Brotherhood operates an international jihadist network that threatens the United States and Europe no less than it threatens Israel and the Middle East. The organization has pre-positioned weapons across Europe, integrated into Latin American narco-terror networks, and maintains institutional connections to Muslim Brotherhood organizations operating in American cities.
Western governments must adopt the strategic clarity that Middle Eastern states have already demonstrated. This requires several concrete steps:
First, the United States must designate the Muslim Brotherhood a Foreign Terrorist Organization at the federal level, not merely specific national chapters. The organization’s umbrella structure enables it to provide ideological coherence and operational support across borders while individual branches maintain plausible deniability.
Second, European governments must move beyond reactive counterterrorism to proactive disruption of Hamas’s operational infrastructure. The weapons caches discovered in Germany and Denmark suggest that many more remain undiscovered. Intelligence sharing and coordinated law enforcement operations across European borders are essential.
Third, the United States must intensify sanctions enforcement against the Iranian-Venezuelan illicit oil trade and improve intelligence and interdiction of military shipments. Disrupting the financial pipeline sustaining both regimes is critical for neutralizing their broader destabilizing potential.
Finally, Western governments must recognize that effective counterterrorism cannot remain siloed by geographic region. Hamas’s evolution into an international network requires an international response. The convergence of threats—Iranian backing, Venezuelan state sponsorship, European operational cells, and American institutional presence—demands coordinated action across allied governments.
Hamas’s October 7 massacre was not an isolated eruption of violence from Gaza. It was an operation planned and executed by an international terrorist organization with global ambitions and growing capabilities. Until Western governments recognize Hamas as the transnational threat it has become, the group will continue exploiting the gap between regional realities and Western perceptions—a gap measured not in miles, but in the weapons caches still hidden across Europe and the networks still operating in America’s cities.
Sources:
Fanack. “Blockade of Qatar 2017-2021.” Accessed December 3, 2025. https://fanack.com/gulf-cooperation-council/blockade-of-qatar-2017-2021/. Homeland Security Today. “CAIR and Muslim Brotherhood: Terrorists or Not? Experts Weigh In on Why — or Why Not — the Groups Should Be Designated Terrorist Organizations.” Accessed December 3, 2025. https://www.hstoday.us/featured/cair-and-muslim-brotherhood-terrorists-or-not-experts-weigh-in-on-why-or-why-not-the-groups-should-be-designated-terrorist-organizations/. Katersky, Aaron. “Maduro Ally Linked to Hizbullah and Hamas Charged with Narco-Terrorism in New York.” ABC News, May 27, 2020. https://abcnews.go.com/International/maduro-ally-linked-Hizbullah-hamas-charged-narco-terrorism/story?id=70914878. Levitt, Matthew. “Hamas Plots in Europe: A Shift Toward External Operations?” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, June 2024. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/hamas-plots-europe-shift-toward-external-operations. Palumbo, Ray, and Yoni Tobin. “Iran, Venezuela, and Hizbullah: A Convergence of Threats.” Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), 2024. Al Jazeera. “Venezuela Ready to Receive Hamas.” February 13, 2006. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2006/2/13/venezuela-ready-to-receive-hamas
