Amid the international reaction to the chemical weapons attack in Syria
on August 21st (21/8/13) events in Egypt have been very much pushed into
the background. This actually makes me much more suspicious of the
timing of that attack.
Saudi Arabia who are heavily backing the Saudi and Qatari Irregular Army
(SQIA) were outraged when the Egyptian people overthrew Hosni Mubarak
in January 2011 because they feared that if Egypt were to turn into a
prosperous democracy people within Saudi Arabia would begin to question
why they have to put up with a Monarchy almost entirely for the personal
gain of the Royal Family. As such the Saudis supported the Muslim
Brotherhood government of Mohamed Morsi in the hope that its
incompetence would discredit the Brotherhood and deter a similar
uprising in Saudi Arabia.
Although it has caused division across the world the chemical weapons
attack and any possible response should be particularly polarising in
Egypt. Part of the Morsi's main problem is that in government the
Brotherhood got swept up in the Sunni V Shia holy war element of the
conflict in Syria at the expense of running Egypt. As such the prospect
of foreign military intervention is likely to invigorate the
Brotherhood's protests because they see the SQIA as their ideological
siblings. This connection between the Brotherhood and the SQIA means
that by association the SQIA are not particularly popular in Egypt and
the prospect on US military action in any Arab country is always going
to be unpopular. For example the Tamarod movement that helped oust Morsi
has called for the Suez Canal to be blocked to any warships attempting
to use it to take up position in the Mediterranean for an attack on
Syria. Testing the strength of Tamarod's support seems to be the main
reason why the US yesterday (1/9/13) announced its intention to move the
USS Nimitz from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean via the Suez
Canak.
As for the security situation in Egypt it seems to be gradually
improving with the government being able to incrementally move back the
start of the nighttime curfew. In Cairo it now begins at 11pm which is
getting close to being lifted completely. The Muslim Brotherhood through
their front organisation The National Alliance to Support Legitimacy
(NASL) are continuing to hold weekly protests such as last Friday's
(30/8/13) "Friday of Determination" protest. However support for these
protests is dwindling with Friday's said to total no more than 20,000
people nationally and in some parts of Cairo fewer then 100 people took
part in the marches. There were though 6 deaths and 190 reported wounded
on Friday but these appear to be the result of clashes between the
protesters and local residents rather then the result of action by the
security forces.
This dwindling support for the protests seems to have prompted something
of a split within the Brotherhood with some factions calling for
peaceful civil disobedience while other factions seem to be taking on
the classical terrorism tactics seen in the Sinai. For example on
Thursday (29/8/13) 1 police officer was killed and 3 wounded when gunmen
on a motorbike opened fire on their checkpoint in Port Said. On Friday
(30/8/13) gunmen in a car opened fire on a police station in the
Heliopolis district of Cairo killing 1 police officer and wounding
another. On Saturday (31/8/13) there was another drive-by shooting at a
Church in Port Said which wounded 4 police officers. This was followed
by a suspected RPG attack on a container ship in the Suez Canal which
failed causing no damage or injuries. On Sunday (1/9/13) a rudimentary
bomb was discovered and diffused in a bag at the central train station
in Alexandria. Today 2 people were injured when a hand grenade/home made
bomb was thrown at a police station in the Cairo suburb of Giza. So far
all of these terror attacks have been crude and amateurish but they are
something the security forces need to pay close attention to in order
to prevent the terrorists becoming more professional. Based on what is
going on in the Sinai Egypt's security forces seem to be able to cope
with this emerging threat because there the number of arrests and deaths
of terrorists is increasing while the number of attacks is decreasing.
As for Morsi himself on Sunday (1/9/13) he was formally charged and will
face trial over the killing of 7 protesters who had assembled outside
the Presidential Palace on December 4th 2012 (4/12/12) to protest one of
Morsi's many diktats/decrees. Obviously I've not seen the case papers
but if, as is being reported, prosecutors have corroborated testimony
from police and Republican Guard commanders that Morsi ordered them to
remove the protesters only for the order to be refused they have more
than enough to go to trial and probably convict regardless of whether
they can prove that Morsi ordered the Brotherhood thugs who attacked the
protest to do so. The case against Morsi over the January 2011 prison
break is still being prepared.
The other massive piece of news from Egypt recently is that yesterday
the 50 members of the Assembly to rewrite the constitution was
announced. Along with the 50 alternates all I have at the moment is a
list of 100 names that I do not recognise. Therefore I will comment
further when I've had time to familiarise myself. However the formation
of the assembly does represent a huge step in the right direction in
terms of returning Egypt to democracy and cementing the revolution.
(Originally Posted) 20:35 on 2/9/13.
No comments:
Post a Comment