Egypt’s army-backed interim government yesterday designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, a day after a massive bomb destroyed an Egyptian police station and killed at least 15 people. The Washington Post reports:

The announcement was a stunning blow to the decades-old Islamist organization, which survived for years in the shadows and in prison cells under then-President Hosni Mubarak but reached the height of political power after his ouster in the 2011 uprising.

Wednesday’s decree, which accused the Brotherhood of a deadly car bombing outside a security building Tuesday, broadened the government’s authority to move against the group.

Another bomb this morning exploded in a busy Cairo intersection this morning, wounding five, with the attack being described by Century Foundation senior fellow Michael Hanna as a “worrying signal that Egypt’s militants [are] no longer content” with launching terrorist attacks in the Sinai Peninsula but were expanding their operations throughout the rest of Egypt.

Until recently the Islamist organization was described by many Western analysts and diplomats as being not only on the ascendancy, but as a group that the U.S. and its allies would have to learn to “deal with” at least partly on its own terms. Describing a mid-2011 decision by the Obama administration to resume contact with the Brotherhood, Politico described the U.S. position as assessing that ‘the Brotherhood’s rise in political prominence… [made] the American contact necessary.’

[Photo: AssociatedPress / YouTube ]