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Tag: mohammed morsi
Two Police Brass Killed Trying To Defuse Bombs Near Egyptian Palace

Two Police Brass Killed Trying To Defuse Bombs Near Egyptian Palace

By Laura King and Amro Hassan, Los Angeles Times

CAIRO — A series of bomb blasts near Egypt’s presidential palace killed two senior police officials and injured 10 other people on Monday, officials and media reports said, two days after another deadly explosion struck the capital.

The three bombings occurred on a tensely symbolic day: the first anniversary of the start of massive protests that culminated in the Egyptian army removing Islamist President Mohamed Morsi from office.

After the bombs went off, authorities sealed off streets surrounding the palace in Cairo’s affluent Heliopolis district. Security forces also closed Tahrir Square, the site of many of last summer’s demonstrations, to sweep for explosives in advance of celebrations on Monday evening.

The government — now led by President Abdel Fattah Sisi, the then-army general who orchestrated Morsi’s ouster — calls the protests that broke out a year ago the “June 30 revolution.” Egyptian officials bristle at any characterization of the deposing of Morsi, the country’s first freely elected president, as a coup.

In a speech marking the anniversary, Sisi, who has presided over a wide-ranging crackdown on Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, signaled that his government would continue to deal harshly with opponents, particularly any who engage in violence.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday’s bombings. The Islamist group Ajnad Misr, or Soldiers of Egypt, had claimed last week that it had planted homemade explosive devices close to the presidential palace, intending to target police.

The group also said it had penetrated palace security earlier this month and managed to smuggle a bomb inside, a claim that authorities have denied.

The two police officials who were killed Monday, one a colonel and another a lieutenant colonel, died trying to defuse two of the bombs. One other devise was disposed of safely, Egyptian media reports said.

Authorities have warned against any anniversary demonstrations this week by supporters of Morsi, who is now on trial for an array of capital crimes. Thousands of his followers are behind bars, and more than 1,400 have been killed over the last year in clashes with security forces, according to human rights groups.

AFP Photo/Khales Desouki

British Government Launches Investigation Of Muslim Brotherhood

British Government Launches Investigation Of Muslim Brotherhood

By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times

LONDON — The British government has launched a review of the Muslim Brotherhood amid reports that members of the Islamist group fled to the country after Egypt’s crackdown in order to plot strategy and possibly plan terrorist attacks, officials said Tuesday.

Prime Minister David Cameron has ordered Britain’s intelligence agencies, its embassies in the Middle East and outside experts to help the government better understand the group’s aims and activities and how those might affect British interests.

“The Muslim Brotherhood has risen in prominence in recent years, but our understanding of the organization — its philosophy and values — has not kept pace with this,” a statement from Cameron’s office said. “Given the concerns now being expressed about the group and its alleged links to violent extremism, it’s absolutely right and prudent that we get a better handle of what the Brotherhood stands for.”

The investigation, led by British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia John Jenkins, is to issue its findings this summer.

It marks a departure from the more lenient view that British officials had taken of the Muslim Brotherhood as a political organization with Islamist goals rather than as a violent extremist group, which authorities in Egypt and Saudi Arabia insist it is.

Last July, the Egyptian military removed that country’s democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and began a harsh crackdown on the organization.

Morsi and other senior figures from the group are on trial. Other members have gone underground.

The Times of London, which first reported Cameron’s decision to launch an inquiry, said authorities want to know how many of the group’s members may now be based in Britain after fleeing Egypt. The newspaper said some of the organization’s leaders met in London late last year to come up with their next move after Morsi’s overthrow, and have established a base in a northern district of the British capital.

British intelligence agents are also trying to establish whether the Muslim Brotherhood was behind a terrorist attack in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula that killed three tourists in February, the Times said.

Whether the British government’s review of the Muslim Brotherhood is a pretext or prelude for banning the organization remains to be seen. A spokesman for Cameron, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said a mechanism has already been in place for more than a decade that enables the government to outlaw groups that it believes promote terrorism.

“We are not going to pre-judge the review’s findings,” the spokesman said.

AFP/Khaled Desouki

Gunmen Kill Senior Egyptian Interior Ministry Official In Cairo

Gunmen Kill Senior Egyptian Interior Ministry Official In Cairo

by Laura King, Los Angeles Times

CAIRO — Drive-by gunmen on Tuesday assassinated a police general outside his home in the capital, state media reported, in the rare targeting of a senior member of Egypt’s security establishment.

The slain man was identified by the state-owned Al Ahram website as Gen. Mohamed Saeed, a top aide to Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim, who himself escaped an attempt in September to kill him with a suicide bomb.

Although suspected Islamic militants have been launching frequent attacks against security targets such as headquarters buildings and army outposts, the singling out of a particular official for assassination is a rarity.

The Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, is hated by many for its heavy-handed role in breaking up demonstrations, mainly by backers of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, but also by secularists who oppose the military-backed government that took power in July.

The human rights group Amnesty International said earlier this month that some 1,400 people had been killed in political violence in the nearly seven months the interim government has been in power.

Photo: Jonathan Rashad via Flickr