On Thursday (15/8/13) evening Egypt's security forces moved into secure
the Iman Mosque where the Muslim Brotherhood had been storing the
majority of the bodies they claim had been killed during Wednesday's
(14/8/13) clearance of the Brotherhoods camps. The purpose of this was
to make sure that the dead could be passed on to the Ministry of Health
so they could be counted and properly stored until they are claimed by
relatives. Security forces also recovered a number of bodies that had
been buried at the Rabea al-Adaweya Mosque camp. These new discoveries
bring the total killed nationally on Wednesday to 638 although because
the bodies had been moved it is impossible to tell exactly when and
where they died. However a significant number of the 113 corpses had
been burned beyond recognition suggesting that they died after fire
engulfed the Rabea al-Adaweya camp. To me this really begs the question
of what the Brotherhood thought what they were playing at when they
started throwing petrol bombs around in what was effectively a tent
city.
Also on Thursday night the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) met in
a special closed door session to discuss events in Egypt on Wednesday.
This was actually a very short meeting with only time for the UNSC
members to be briefed on events by UNSC staffers and add any information
they had gathered themselves before agreeing to release a short and
bland statement that deplored the violence and called on all parties to
avoid a repeat. Although it was a closed door session I suspect the main
loser of the meeting was Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan who rather
hysterically demanded the UNSC meet. This demand was driven mainly by
the fact Erdogan had built the majority of his future political plans
around there being a Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt and is now
very worried that the Turkish people backed by the Turkish military may
follow Egypt's example and kick him and his Islamist policies out of
office. Today France and Germany have successfully called for a European
Union (EU) meeting to discuss Egypt. However this meeting is not likely
to take place until the scheduled EU security summit on September
6/7th. Its main purpose seems to be to make sure that all EU member
states get a say in how the EU reacts to the situation. That's because
in times of crisis the office of the EU Commissioner for Foreign Affairs
headed by British Baroness Ashdown can act with such a level of
autonomy its position can be utterly removed from the views of the EU
member states.
Today the Muslim Brotherhood have once again tried to paralyse Egypt by
calling on people to march from every Mosque in the nation as part of a
"Day of Anger and Rage." Primarily this served to demonstrate that being
unable to concentrate their supporters in a very small area of Cairo
the Muslim Brotherhood and their views actually represent a tiny
minority of the Egyptian population. Small marches took place in
Alexandria, Ismalia and Tanta in Gharbeya province but these were
quickly and violently attacked by local residents. The security forces
rather sensibly decided not to get involved in this instead opting to
defend Coptic Churches and government buildings. Although the totals are
still being totted up it appears that 25 people have been killed in
clashes outside of the capital Cairo.
Cairo is of course where the Brotherhood focused the main part of their
efforts with several marches taking place across the city all set to
converge on Ramsis Square. Being well prepared the security forces
actually did a very good job of stopping and containing these various
marches at different parts of the city in order to prevent them forming
one big march in Ramsis Square. The main trouble flared when two of the
marches were stopped on the May 15th and October 6th bridges. On both of
those bridges Brotherhood supporters were armed with assault rifles
that they used to shoot passers-by, shoot at the security forces in
order to provoke them into firing into the crowd or simply firing into
the crowd themselves. As a result battles raged at the Ramsis Square
side of both bridges leaving a confirmed 35 dead so far. However if you
listen to the Muslim Brotherhood's version of events entirely peaceful
protesters were gathered in Ramsis Square when military helicopter
gunships flew over head strafing the crowd with machine gun fire killing
hundreds.
Egypt is currently around two and half hours into a overnight curfew. My
advice is for people to respect that curfew because the security forces
will be strictly enforcing it to make sure that the violence ends for
the day without the Brotherhood being able to set up a new camp in
Cairo. Unfortunately the Brotherhood have called for an entire week of
protest. However based on the numbers they brought to the streets today I
don't see them being able to sustain that.
(Originally Posted) 19:30 on 16/8/13.
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