MB militants attack Egyptian Army in Sinai

埃及失控 瀕臨內戰邊緣

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July 09, 2013 06:05 AM | 5424 次 | 0  | 5  |  | 

埃及政治衝突繼續流血擴大，遭罷黜的埃及總統莫西的支持者8日繼續在首都開羅的共和衛隊總部外靜坐，抗議埃及軍方日前推翻莫西政府，他們指控軍警在凌晨4時向靜坐者開槍，造成至少54人死亡，300多人受傷，但軍方聲稱有暴徒混在人群中先向軍警開槍，才引發衝突。這是軍方罷黜莫西以來，死傷最多的單一事件，莫西支持者的穆斯林兄弟會立即號召「起義」，此一最新發展將導致埃及更加動盪。

針對情勢日益惡化失控，臨時總統曼蘇爾8日公布時間表，表示五個月的時間修改憲法，在2014年初舉行國會大選，希望能儘快回到民主政府。

俄羅斯總統普亭7日在哈薩克發表講話指出，埃及處於「爆發內戰」的邊緣。這是他近期第二次就埃及時局發表講話。他表示，敘利亞已經被內戰席捲，埃及也在朝這個方向前進，「希望埃及人民避免遭遇這種結局」。穆斯林兄弟會聲稱，民眾8日清晨在共和衛隊總部外集體靜坐晨禱，卻慘遭軍警開槍「屠殺」。兄弟會的政治羽翼自由正義黨呼籲人民「起義」：「偉大的埃及人群起反抗企圖以戰車竊奪革命的陰謀集團。」

軍方表示，「武裝的恐怖分子」試圖硬闖基地，造成一名軍官殉職，六人重傷。包括部分穆斯林兄弟會支持者在內的目擊者指出，軍警只動用催淚瓦斯，而且對空鳴槍，真正開槍行凶的是穿著便服的「暴徒」。

莫西的支持者表示，軍方未受到挑釁即開槍，軍方則強調，軍警先受到攻擊。軍方指定的埃及臨時總統曼蘇爾呼籲各方自制，同時指示徹查事件的起因與責任歸屬。穆斯林兄弟會表示，正確的死亡人數是52人，其中包括兒童，不過埃及衛生部表示，至少42人死亡。

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Brotherhood militants move into Sinai 'to attack army'

Published: July 9, 2013 at 12:34 PM

CAIRO, July 9 (UPI) --CAIRO, July 9 (UPI) -- Scores of militants linked to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, now locked in an explosive confrontation with the Egyptian army over the ousting of President Mohamed Morsi, a Brotherhood leader, are reported to have moved into the Sinai Peninsula to fight the military.
They're expected to join forces with jihadist groups linked to al-Qaida who have established bases in Sinai's vast desert wastes since 2011 and are already clashing with Egyptian security forces.
This is taking place against a backdrop of mounting bloodshed in Egypt, where the military killed 51 people at a Brotherhood rally in Cairo Monday protesting what's widely seen as a military coup against Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected president.
But there are wider ramifications. There are concerns the violence sweeping Egypt, the Arab world's most populous nation, could spill over into Israel on Sinai's eastern border, threatening its historic 1979 peace treaty with Egypt.
Israel's military and intelligence services are warily watching developments in Egypt and northern Sinai, where Israeli and Egyptian intelligence believe there are some 2,000 jihadist militants armed with weapons smuggled from Libya and operating with the support of many of the long-neglected 600,000-strong Bedouin tribes scattered across the peninsula.
Islamist militants have launched several attacks on the Jewish state from Sinai since the February 2011 downfall of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak in a pro-democracy uprising, the event that led to Morsi's June 2012 election.
Former Israeli defense minister Gen. Binyamin Ben-Eliezer warned as Morsi was about to fall that Egypt was on the verge of a civil war.
Most Israeli leaders have said little about events in Egypt, with which Israel fought and won four wars in 1948-49, 1956, 1967 and 1973 to avoid inflaming the issue of the U.S.-brokered peace treaty, which has long been unpopular among Egypt's 82 million people.
But Ben-Eliezer, a close associate of Mubarak who staunchly supported the treaty, observed: "The situation in Egypt has reached a point of no return. It's the beginning of a civil war."
Israel has allowed Egypt to deploy a battalion of tanks on Sinai's border with the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian hotbed ruled by the fundamentalist Hamas movement, to prevent infiltration.
Egyptian forces have also destroyed dozens of underground tunnels between the southern Gaza town of Rafah and Egyptian Sinai, used by Hamas to smuggle in weapons and to infiltrate militants into the increasingly turbulent peninsula that links North Africa with Asia.
Under the peace treaty, Egypt can only deploy small military forces in Sinai, particularly in the eastern zone bordering Israel.
But the Israelis are giving the Egyptian military considerable leeway in moving forces close to Gaza because that increases security in Sinai, the main battleground in all of the Jewish state's wars with Egypt.
As the violence between the army and the Brotherhood, the two main powers in Egypt, continues to grow, the bloodshed's spread from Cairo to the cities of the Nile Delta.
In Sinai, there was a surge of attacks by militants. A soldier was killed early Friday in Rafah and gunmen attacked several army and police bases with rockets and machinegun fire, including the Mediterranean city of El Arish, the regional capital.
There have been persistent reports Morsi's government treated the jihadist groups in Sinai with kid gloves because of their ideological links and their common dream of restoring an Islamist caliphate in the Middle East.
Whatever the validity of those reports, Hamas, a Brotherhood offshoot, has been shaken by Morsi's ouster.
Its anti-Israel hardliners, like the jihadists in Sinai, appear to have been stiffened in their opposition to democratic politics by the toppling of Morsi just over a year after he made political history by becoming Egypt's first freely elected president after decades of sham elections that kept one dictator after another in power with implausibly huge majorities that often ran as high as 95 percent.
Morsi's departure is also a setback for moderate Islamist parties that have been emboldened or come to power because of the so-called Arab Spring, most notably in Tunisia, where longtime dictator Zein al-Abedin Ben Ali was driven out in January 2011.
But it has greatly bolstered jihadists' belief that power can only be achieved through holy war and bloodshed, not through the ballot box. And that may be the true legacy of Morsi's downfall.
Watch Syria.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2013/07/09/Brotherhood-militants-move-into-Sinai-to-attack-army/UPI-29021373387673/print#ixzz2YcOH20nl

ISAIAH 19 PROPHECY ALERT: Egypt teeters on the brink of civil war

Published on Wednesday, 10 July 2013 08:15

EGYPT - With its people more polarized than ever and the military once again struggling to impose calm, Egypt’s downward spiral appears to have no bottom. At least 51 people were killed Monday when army and police forces opened fire on a sit-in during morning prayers. The protesters outside Republican Guard headquarters said they were peacefully calling for the release of the Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, whom the military deposed last week.
The army said it responded to a “terror group” firing weapons and hurling Molotov cocktails. Stunned but not deterred by the violence, the Islamists quickly called for a national uprising. “We are very patient. We Egyptians built the pyramids,” said Essam Erian, deputy head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing. “Do you know how many people died building the pyramids? How many died digging the Suez Canal?” The two sides’ differing views of the violence were a chilling suggestion of what Egypt may yet endure.
The military crackdown has been fierce and swift. But the army so far has been unable to patch together a coalition government to replace Morsi and the Brotherhood. Without it, critics say, the army resorted to excessive force — as it did two years ago when it stepped in after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak. The army’s actions early Monday may also have nudged two Islamic adversaries — the Brotherhood and the ultraconservative Salafist Nour Party — closer together. Nour, which won 25% of the vote in last year’s parliamentary elections, plays a pivotal role. It sided against the Brotherhood last week and joined a coalition of secular and religious parties in favor of ousting Morsi. But it balked at the naming of prominent secularist Mohamed ElBaradei as prime minister Saturday. Facing increasing pressure from the Islamist camp after the killings, Nour withdrew from the negotiations on forming an interim government. The move is likely to consolidate Islamist forces and damage efforts to stabilize the country.

The military is dealing “with human beings, not animals, so how can you target people like that?” said Nour spokesman Nader Bakar. “This is something that cannot be justified…. Where is the military’s self-control and restraint?” The army was unbowed. It was determined to convince Egyptians that its takeover and removal of Morsi, the country’s first freely elected president, was necessary to stem political chaos and economic turmoil. It said it was forced to act because of a deepening threat from radicals. “The armed forces always deal with issues very wisely, but there is certainly also a limit to patience,” said Ahmed Ali, the military spokesman. The army increasingly has used the term “terrorism” to describe not only attacks by militants, but also in reference to clashes between pro- and anti-Morsi demonstrators.
The term to many Egyptians is becoming a code word for Islamists. “The reports say that the army assaulted them while they were praying, but of course this isn’t true,” said Ibrahim Allaga, a 23-year-old who runs a T-shirt business. He was one of the anti-Morsi demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Monday. “This has never happened in Egyptian history, that the army would attack people while they pray. This is a rumor started by terrorist groups to get the support of the Egyptian people.” In Washington, the Obama administration ruled out, at least for now, cutting off $1.5 billion in annual aid to Egypt despite a federal law that requires halting assistance to countries that have overthrown elected governments with military coups. –LA Times
Egypt’s on the boil. Washington’s very much involved. So is Israel. Both countries have important issues at stake.
Egyptians have legitimate grievances. They’re longstanding. They’ve been unaddressed for decades. Political and socioeconomic ones are key.
Things are worse now than ever. Bread and butter issues matter most. Widespread poverty, unemployment and extreme deprivation persist. Conditions are intolerable.
Ousting Morsi doesn’t matter. Neoliberal harshness is policy. So is police state repression. Junta power rules. It does so brutally.
Democracy’s an illusion. It exists in name only. It’s fiction, not fact. Street protests won’t work unless sustained. Days and weeks won’t help. Months and years are needed.
Whether Egyptians are up to the challenge remains to be seen. Mubarak’s ouster accomplished nothing. Nor does changing the guard now.
Entrenched power rules Egypt. Washington exerts enormous influence. It’s waning but still important. Change won’t come easily or quickly. Lots more blood may be spilled.
It’s true across the region. Breaking free takes commitment. It requires longterm struggle. Palestinians have been at it on and off for decades. Civil and labor rights in America took years of painful struggles.
Street protests raged. So did work stoppages, battling police, and paying with blood and lives before real gains were won.
Doing so’s half the battle. Lost energy turns triumphs into tragedies. It happens more often than not. Odds for success in Egypt short-term are nil. Longer term’s far from sure. Eventually perhaps is possible.

It’s true everywhere. Palestinians one day will be free. They’ve struggled too long to quit. They’re on their own. They’ll get no help from America. They never did. They won’t now. Washington sustains Israel’s killing machine.
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July 9, 2013

Egypt at the Edge

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

In every civil war there is a moment before all hell breaks loose when there is still a chance to prevent a total descent into the abyss. Egypt is at that moment.

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan starts this week, and it can’t come too soon. One can only hope that the traditional time for getting family and friends together will provide a moment for all the actors in Egypt to reflect on how badly they’ve behaved — all sides — and opt for the only sensible pathway forward: national reconciliation. I was a student at the American University in Cairo in the early 1970s and have been a regular visitor since. I’ve never witnessed the depth of hatred that has infected Egypt in recent months: Muslim Brotherhood activists throwing a young opponent off a roof; anti-Islamist activists on Twitter praising the Egyptian army for mercilessly gunning down supporters of the Brotherhood in prayer. In the wake of all this violent turmoil, it is no longer who rules Egypt that it is at stake. It is Egypt that is at stake. This is an existential crisis.

Can Egypt hold together and move forward as a unified country or will it be torn asunder by its own people, like Syria? Nothing is more important in the Middle East today, because when the stability of modern Egypt is at stake — sitting as it does astride the Suez Canal, the linchpin of any Arab peace with Israel and knitting together North Africa, Africa and the Middle East — the stability of the whole region is at stake.

I appreciate the anger of non-Islamist, secular and liberal Egyptians with President Mohamed Morsi. He never would have become president without their votes, but, once in office, instead of being inclusive, at every turn he grabbed for more power. With Egypt’s economy in a tailspin, I also appreciate the impatience of many Egyptians with Morsi’s rule. But in the Arab world’s long transition to democracy, something valuable was lost when the military ousted Morsi’s government and did not wait for the Egyptian people to do it in October’s parliamentary elections or the presidential elections three years down the road. It gives the Muslim Brothers a perfect excuse not to reflect on their mistakes and change, which is an essential ingredient for Egypt to build a stable political center.

But Egypt’s non-Islamists, secular and liberal groups need to get their act together, too. The Egyptian opposition has been great at mobilizing protests but incapable of coalescing around a single leader’s agenda, while the Brotherhood has been great at winning elections but incapable of governing.

So now there is only one way for Egypt to avoid the abyss: the military, the only authority in Egypt today, has to make clear that it ousted the Muslim Brotherhood for the purpose of a “reset,” not for the purposes of “revenge” — for the purpose of starting over and getting the transition to democracy right this time, not for the purpose of eliminating the Brotherhood from politics. (It is not clear that the “interim constitution” issued Tuesday by Egypt’s transitional government will give the Brotherhood a fair shot at contesting power. It bans parties based on religion, but that ban was in place under Hosni Mubarak, and the Brotherhood got around it by running as independents.) Egypt will not be stable if the Brotherhood is excluded.

Dalia Mogahed, the C.E.O. of Mogahed Consulting and a longtime pollster in the Middle East, remarked to me that the original 2011 revolution that overthrew Mubarak was mounted by “young people, leftists, liberals, Islamists, united for a better future. The division was between those revolutionaries and the status quo. The revolution wasn’t owned by the secularists or the liberals or the Islamists. That’s why it worked.” Democracy in Egypt “only has a chance when revolutionaries again see the status quo as their enemy, not each other.” 

She is right: Muslim Brothers can kill more secularists; the military can kill more Muslim Brothers; but another decade of the status quo in Egypt will kill them all. The country will be a human development disaster. With the absence of a true party of reform — that blends respect for religion with a strategy of modernization as the great 19th-century Egyptian reformers did — Egyptians today are being forced to choose not a better way, but between bad ideas.

The Brotherhood posits that “Islam is the answer.” The military favors a return to the deep state of old. But more religion alone is not the answer for Egypt today and while the military-dominated deep state may provide law and order and keep Islamists down, it can’t provide the kind of fresh thinking and educational, entrepreneurial, social and legal reforms needed to empower and unleash Egypt’s considerable human talent and brainpower. In truth, the 2002 U.N. Arab Human Development Report is the answer, which, by the way, was mostly written by Egyptian scholars. It called on Egyptians to focus on building a politics that can overcome their debilitating deficits of freedom, education and women’s empowerment. That is the pathway Egypt needs to pursue — not Mubarakism, Morsi-ism or military rule — and the job of Egypt’s friends now is not to cut off aid and censure, but to help it gradually but steadily find that moderate path.

Joseph Lee ‏@Joseph23237m

@Joseph2323 In every civil war there is a moment before all hell breaks loose when there is still a chance... http://