Yesterday (15/7/13) the Muslim Brotherhood held their largest day of
protest since their "Day of Rejection" on July 5th (5/7/13) sparked
nationwide violence that left a minimum of 36 people dead. The
Brotherhood's plan was to bring over 1 million protesters to the streets
of Cairo in order to shut down traffic across the city and attack the
Embassies of nations who they accuse of supporting the ouster of Mohamed
Morsi.
Fortunately the Brotherhood were only able to muster a maximum of
250,000 protesters but were able to block the October 6th bridge and
Ramses Square which is one of Cairo's busiest road junctions. There were
also static protests in Nasr city and Giza which is a south-western
suburb of Cairo. The army and the police obviously moved into clear the
October 6th bridge and the streets around Ramses Square leading to
clashes in which tear gas was fired and two people were killed. In Giza
more serious clashes broke out between Morsi supporters, revolutionaries
and the security forces in which seven people were killed. Over all the
night of violence left 7 dead, 250 injured and 400 people arrested.
In response to the violence the Tamarod movement has announced its
intention to disband because it sees the time for street protests to be
over so the political process can take over. Perhaps more importantly
the Al-Azhar Mosque - Egypt's most powerful - has issued a statement
prohibiting Muslims from attacking members of the Egyptian military and
police. Hopefully the Muslim Brotherhood will heed this call because
their actions now represent a clear threat to the safety and security of
the Egyptian nation so will be met with a swift and strong response
from the military should they continue.
Nowhere is the disruption that the Brotherhood's continuing protests are
having on Egyptian society then in the announcement Sunday (14/7/13)
that the nation's football premier league season is to be cancelled.
This makes me a little nervous because I would much prefer to see the
Ultras going to football matches rather then protesting against military
rule in Tahrir Square as they did after the fall of Mubarak.
Unfortunately though I don't see any other solution because the Interior
Ministry simply don't have the resources to police the Muslim
Brotherhood protests and football matches. In fact they barely have the
resources to police the Brotherhood's protests.
The most serious threat to Egypt's security and stability though
continues to come from the Sinai region where serious armed attacks take
place on often a more than daily basis. Between July 5th (5/7/13) and
July 12th (12/7/13) there were 27 separate attacks that left 12 people
dead including 1 Coptic Christian who was beheaded seemingly simply for
being a Christian. On Sunday (14/7/13) 3 people were killed and 16
injured when Islamists fired a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) at a
police patrol but missed hitting a bus carrying cement factory workers
back to Al-Arish. On the same day 1 adult and 1 child were killed when
Islamist gunmen opened fire on a police station that was under
construction again near Al-Arish. Today there was another gun attack on a
police station in Sheikh Zuwayed although no casualties have been
reported. Faced with this level of violence the Egyptian military have
been fighting back hard. Since operations began around July 6th (6/7/13)
they have reportedly killed 37 militants. On Monday (15/7/13) they
captured and destroyed 23 smugglers undergound fuel tanks and today
intercepted a shipment of Grad rockets and other military equipment on
route from Suez to Cairo.
Things have got so bad that today Israel gave the Egyptian military
permission to deploy to full battalions of troops to Sinai to tackle the
militants head on. Although I fully appreciate that militants in the
Sinai need to be smashed this worries me. That's because I understand
that a lot of the work the smugglers who are linked to the Islamist
terrorists do involves helping break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
Therefore by provoking the Egyptian military into a confrontation the
Islamists are running the risk that the smuggling routes that support
the people of Gaza will also be dismantled. This is no doubt one of the
reasons why Israel is so keen to allow Egyptian troops into the Sinai.
Elsewhere the government in Turkey have once again decried Morsi's
ouster as a military coup and said that it still considers Morsi to be
Egypt's President. Therefore I should explain that Turkey is a nation
with a long history of a secular military overthrowing Islamist
governments. With Turkey's current Islamist government coming under
increasing domestic pressure over things like Gezi Park it is obviously
going to object loudly to any secular military overthrowing an Islamist
government anywhere in the world.
On the domestic political level while I've been writing this interim
President Mansour has just unveiled his interim government of national
unity However details are yet to emerge so I will have to take a while
to compare it to the rumours I've been hearing and give a fuller
reaction later.
(Originally Posted) 17:30 16/7/13.
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