Barely does one have the time to pause to contemplate the latest political development, or a new twist in the rapidly changing security crisis with its large numbers of victims among the parties involved, than one is hit by another powerful surprise. On Monday morning, Egypt awoke to the tragic news of the murder of 25 soldiers who had served the nation for three years on Egypt's eastern border, the most gruelling years for Egyptian national security since the October 1973 War. The perpetrator was a terrorist group consisting of 11 members, according to the security authorities. Using three vehicles, the gunmen ambushed the minibus transporting the soldiers on the Rafah road, forced the soldiers to get out and lie face down on the ground, and then shot them with machine-gun fire. The attack occurred several hours after 37 detained Muslim Brotherhood members were suffocated by tear gas as they attempted to escape while being transported to prison. The two incidents underscore the nature of the political and security crisis that is currently gripping Egypt. Following the break-up of the pro-Morsi sit-ins at Rabaa Al-Adaweya and Nahda Square, one cannot help but sense a design to lure the security forces into an escalation in the violence that could give the impression abroad that Egypt is descending into chaos and requires outside intervention. Military affairs expert Talaat Muslim and former deputy-director of the State Security Service General Fouad Allam agreed that there were indications that some members of the Brotherhood's “special apparatus” remained at large and were working towards that end. They also agreed that although it appeared that these elements had succeeded in winning a degree of foreign sympathy, they would ultimately fail in their design because many factors have pitted the Brotherhood against the combined forces of the Egyptian people and their state and institutions. “The two sides are not equal in terms of strength,” said Ibrahim Nawar, former political advisor to the UN mission in Iraq, who added that “the game of the US and European nations is to stage a repetition of the Iraqi scenario in 1991 by striking at the Egyptian army within the framework of a regional scheme designed to put an end to the last strong and cohesive military force in the region.” “However, the popular backing that embraces the army today, together with the cohesion of the national fabric in the face of attempts to incite sectarian strife by burning churches, are signs of the ultimate failure of this scheme, which is being advanced at home by Brotherhood opportunism and abroad by a Western press that only sees what it wants to see in these developments.” In many of the assessments of the conflagrations that have erupted across the country, questions have been raised with respect to alleged confusion in the preparedness of the security situation. This has had a number of negative repercussions, especially in Upper Egypt, where numerous churches have been burned, the homes of Copts set on fire, and other attacks on Christian targets have been rife. General Alaa Ezzeddin, director of the Armed Forces Strategic Studies Centre, admitted that there had been deficiencies that should be acknowledged in the provision of security both in Upper Egypt and Sinai. “The problem relates to the number of the security reserves, of which no more than a third would have been deployed,” he said, adding that the Brotherhood had used this factor along with the element of surprise to its own benefit. “After all, how could people parading beneath Islamic banners attack sacred places? However, sadly, they attacked mosques and dozens of churches,” Ezzeddin said. The Muslim Brotherhood has only had one word to say in explanation of the recent developments. This has been mouthed by every spokesman and reiterated in every official or unofficial newspaper and on every social-networking website: “conspiracy”. According to the group's narrative, the army and police are killing their own members. One flagrant example of this Brotherhood narrative was to be found in the group's account of the second Rafah massacre, which had it that the army had ambushed its own vehicle transporting soldiers whom this account described as “dissidents”. According to this narrative, the army staged the massacre in order to cover up for the deaths of the 37 Brotherhood detainees being transported to the Abu Zaabal prison. Brotherhood official Ahmed Sabie reiterated the narrative in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, adding that there had been a “grand conspiracy” to weave together more scenarios aimed at eliminating his group, which he believes is anyway on the road to extinction. Sources in Sinai offer a different account. Ahmed Abu Diraa, a resident of Rafah, told the Weekly that people in Sinai had been horrified by the massacre of the soldiers, and in his view slack security was at fault. Apparently, the soldiers had boarded the bus at a public bus station, and anyone could have told that they were headed back to camp. The fact that they were easily identifiable as soldiers and were riding in the same bus made them ready bait for those wanting to exact revenge for the Brotherhood deaths at Abu Zaabal. A military source in Rafah told the Weekly that the army had concrete proof of the links between the Brotherhood and its allies and jihadist and Salafist organisations in Sinai that had carried out the massacre. He said that the attack had not necessarily been linked to the Abu Zaabal incident and was probably planned in advance and perhaps carried out earlier than had originally been planned. Whatever the case, the Armed Forces are now certain to avenge the deaths of their soldiers, which may lead to a qualitative shift in military operations in Sinai within the coming days. The battle of the Al-Fateh Mosque in Cairo, in which Brotherhood demonstrators ended up barricading themselves in after staging a demonstration in front of the building, was another episode in a series of armed confrontations between the state and the Brotherhood. Weekly reporters observed that the Al-Qaeda flag was prominently displayed in one area of the demonstration and that there was no attempt to take it down, perhaps because of the risk that this would have involved. It was later learned that a number of foreigners had also been among the demonstrators, including Syrians and Palestinians as well as a Pakistani. The confrontation with the police when marchers moved towards Tahrir Square meant that as a result of the heavy army and security presence the march veered off in the direction of the Azbakeya police station, which a number of youths began to pelt with stones. Meanwhile, armed militants who had taken up positions on the 6 October flyover opened fire on the security services, and these, after a quarter of an hour's restraint, returned fire. Some refused to heed the appeals of their colleagues to retreat and warnings that those attacking them had been planted in the crowd. As for those who backed off, their faces were visibly strained by anxiety, which soon turned to shock at the sight of other colleagues who were forced to leap to the ground from the bridge itself. It is widely believed that the Brotherhood's paramilitary wing, which most of the organisation's members are unaware of, played a significant role in the confrontation. Sabie dismisses this scenario, denying the existence of such a force in his organisation. But sheikh Nabil Naim, a founder of the Egyptian Jihad Organisation, discussed this very scenario in interviews with the privately-owned Dream and Al-Hayat satellite TV stations on Sunday and Monday. Former Brotherhood lawyer Mokhtar Nouh also believes in the existence of the paramilitary group. The Brotherhood had been fed by elements from Islamic Jihad and Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya and had become a militant organisation that had shed all remnants of its former character as a peaceful association devoted to religious work, he said. General Ezzeddin agreed, adding that the Brotherhood had used its paramilitary wing as “cat's claws” without the slightest appreciation of the consequences. Naim stressed that although the Brotherhood was bent on the pursuit of its own separate project that did not conform to the views or interests of other Islamist trends, his group had allied with the organisation on the basis of certain theological principles. As many observers have agreed, when General Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi succeeded in touching a chord with the greater Egyptian public with the points on religion that he cited in his recent speech, he pulled the rug out from under these organisations. The so-called people's defence committees offered another glaring example of the deterioration in the security situation. Last week brought reports of the unwarranted harassment of ordinary people, including attacks on private vehicles. The attacks, seized on by the Brotherhood to market its take on events, only came to the attention of the security services after a number of incidents in which youths were observed carrying swords and knives as they picked up objects from the ground in front of armoured vehicles and tanks. Although such neighbourhood defence committees were a familiar sight in the early days of the 25 January Revolution and were condoned by the security forces at the time, they convey a misleading impression. Another strategic mistake, according to General Allam, was the call for these committees to form issued by the Tamarod (Rebel) movement. While the movement's motives were praiseworthy, he said, some parties had exploited the call in an illegal manner. The security and safety of the streets was the responsibility of the security services, he added. In his recent speech to army and police officers, Al-Sisi was very clear in his emphasis on the points above. According to General Gamal Mazloum, military training advisor at the Naif Academy in Riyadh, this signalled a shift from civil strife to “a confrontation in which the Armed Forces assume both the burdens and the losses because it has been reared on this creed.” Without a doubt, the Brotherhood, which in the minds of the vast majority of Egyptians has come to be perceived as an armed terrorist group, contributed to this development. One Brotherhood leader admitted as much, saying in an interview with the Weekly that “during the sit-in at Rabaa Al-Adaweya we imagined we were in a crisis that would end one day. However, today I can say that it is the crisis that will end us and the group.” “The Muslim Brotherhood is fragmented, and there is resentment among the base toward its leaders, especially Khairat Al-Shater whose name we entered on the list of those who should be purged that we presented to the Guidance Bureau during the sit-in. At that time, we threatened to resign collectively in our capacity as a contingent of second-generation leaders, even though this would have split the group's ranks. However, today there are no longer any ranks. All that remain are zealots.” Nouh agreed, grieving over the blood that had been spilled. However, he believed that there was still a possibility for a political solution that would throw a life raft to the youth and spare them from the precipice over which their leaders had fallen. Nouh said that procedures had been initiated by Mohamed Bishr and the former official spokesman for the presidency, Yasser Ali, regarding ideological revisions in the light of recent events. According to Sabie, Nouh has been a close associate of Bishr since the latter served as the official responsible for the organisation of the liberal professions within the Brotherhood, Nouh being a prominent Brotherhood member of the Lawyers Syndicate. Bishr himself is closely connected to Brotherhood Secretary-General Mahmoud Hussein. Nevertheless, Sabie did not hold out great hopes for the success of such an initiative. Like others with whom the Weekly spoke, he said that the Brotherhood's future had now moved from the murky to the unknown. Al-Sisi delivered a message to this effect when he said that “Egypt is open to all, and we are keen to spare every drop of Egyptian blood. We ask them [the Brotherhood] to reconsider their patriotic positions and to be fully aware that legitimacy is the property of the people, which can grant it to whomever they wish and withdraw it whenever they wish. The protection of the state will remain an obligation borne by the army, the police and the Egyptian people.”
