Today Egypt's interim Prime Minister Hazem El-Bablawi (a civilian and
former under-secretary general to the UN) addressed the nation
following a week of violence. The main headline message of his speech is
that Egypt's power sharing government is studying all legal options to
dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood who have been operating as and
NGO/charity since the fall of Mubarak. Essentially this would allow the
government to seize or sequester the Brotherhoods property and assets
making it very difficult for the organisation to operate.
This would be a big step though because it is likely that certain
factions of the Brotherhood will respond by going underground and start
to operate like a conventional terrorist organisation like the Jihadist
groups that are currently operating in the Sinai. In a strange way this
could actually be a good thing because the occasional car bombing would
actually cause less disruption to everyday life then large protest
marches paralysing the capital accompanied by sporadic outbreaks of
violent rioting. The problem is that to ensure that the Brotherhood's
attacks are limited to the occasional bombing Egypt will have to return
to the repressive security measures of the Mubarak era which to my mind
is equivalent to letting the Brotherhood win. Also having been forced to
make very public statements in support of the Egyptian governments
handling of the camp clearances I suspect the Gulf Monarchies
particularly Saudi Arabia and Qatar will now be looking for a behind the
scenes way of making life difficult for the Egyptian government.
Providing newly formed Muslim Brotherhood terrorist cells with weapons,
training and cash would be the classic way of going about it. Therefore I
think any decision to dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood needs very
careful consideration. After all even with Brotherhood being a legal
organisation the Egyptian police can certainly put its members under
surveillance and search buildings owned and used by them and arrests and
seizures can be made where it's found crimes are being committed.
Overnight and while El-Bablawi was making his address to the nation a
downright bizarre situation has been developing in Ramses Square in
Cairo which rather demonstrates the current political situation in Egypt
in microcosm. When the overnight curfew began yesterday evening Muslim
Brotherhood supporters who had been fighting with the security forces
and members of the public in the streets around Ramses Square decided to
hole up on the Al-Fateh Mosque on the square. Local residents decided
that this was an attempt by the Brotherhood to set up another camp in
Ramses Square and surrounded the Mosque on mass threatening to burn it
to the ground unless the vastly outnumbered Brotherhood supporters left.
Fortunately at this point the police and military arrived on the scene
and managed to keep the angry crowd from attacking the Mosque. The
police and military then set about trying to evacuate the Brotherhood
supporters from the scene for their own safety. Initially the
Brotherhood supporters refused to leave and then started making demands
of the police and military such as they wouldn't be searched as they
left and their weapons wouldn't be confiscated. In places like the UK
this sort of behaviour would normally lead to the Brotherhood supporters
in the Mosque being locked up under the mental health act because
they're clearly so delusional that they pose a danger to themselves.
If I was in charge of this negotiation after about 10 hours I would have
given up, pulled the soldiers and police back and let the local
residents get on with it. Fortunately the Egyptian commanders on the
ground are clearly far more patient then I am and waited for around 14
hours before firing tear gas into the Mosque in a effort to encourage
the Muslim Brotherhood supporters to leave. The Brotherhood supporters
responded to this by opening fire on the police and soldiers with
automatic weapons and positioning snipers in the Mosque's Minarets so
they can open fire on the crowds gathered in the surrounding streets.
This has led to the police and military being forced to mount a slow
moving hostage rescue style operation in the Mosque in which the
hostages they're trying to rescue are the same people who are trying to
kill them.
(Originally Posted) 15:10 on 17/8/13.
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