16 Egyptian soldiers killed at Israel border

Egypt President Mohamed Morsi says 'perpetrators will be punished'; Palestinian Hamas condemns blast; unconfirmed reports 'Islamists' orchestrated episode

Attacks by unknown assailants on Egyptian border guard in the turmoil-hit Sinai left at least 16 dead and seven injured on Sunday, with Egyptian and Palestinian authorities responding fast to the incident.

According to media reports on Sunday evening, the attack involved a military vehicle, reportedly hijacked earlier, which exploded around 7pm. Others were injured after the attackers opened fire on them.

Investigations by authorities into the attack have been immediately opened as no group has claimed responsibility yet.

However, the Egyptian state TV claimed that elements of Islamic extremist groups situated in the Sinai peninsula had carried out the attack by iftar (the hour when people have their meal that breaks the fast during Ramadan), but provided no details.

An anonymous Egyptian security official was quoted by Egypt's state-run news agency, MENA, as saying that Islamist elements who infiltrated Egypt from the Gaza Strip through tunnels are behind the attacks, along with other Islamists situated in the areas of El-Halal Mountain and El-Mahdia in eastern Sinai.

For their side, however, Gaza strip rulers Hamas stressed it has not been involved in the attacks, saying it would never infiltrate Egypt’s borders nor use its weapons against its army in the wake of a deadly attack that left 15 Egyptian soldiers dead on Sunday.

"Hamas has nothing to do with the border tensions. On the contrary, it cares about the Egyptian national security and would never use weapons against the Egyptian army," the faction’s senior leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar told Ahram Online.

Infuriated at the incident, hundreds of Rafah residents (on the Egyptian side of the Egypt-Gaza border) gathered at the Sadat Square and blocked the road, preventing trucks heading to the port of Rafah and tunnels leading to the Gaza Strip.

Some of the protesters told Al-Ahram's Arabic news portal that they refuse seeing the Egyptian army insulted, and that they would sacrifice their blood "to defend the Egyptian soldiers."

The site also reported that hundreds more headed to the Arish hospital, where the injured soldiers were admitted, to donate blood.

Back in Cairo, according to Egypt's health ministry, at least 15 Egyptian soldiers were killed and seven injured in the explosion that went off at a military zone on Sunday, near the city of Rafah, according to Al-Ahram Arabic-language news portal.

Later on, Egyptian state TV reported the death toll has risen to 16.

Ahmed El-Ansari, vice-president of the health ministry-affiliated Egyptian Ambulance Organisation, said that those injured in Sunday's attacks near Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip had been rushed to a hospital in the nearby city of Al-Arish.

According to state news agency MENA, El-Ansari also said that the injured had suffered bullets wounds to the head, chest and arms.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has held an emergency meeting with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the chief of intelligence, and the interior minister to discuss the deadly attacks.

"The martyrs' blood will not be in vain… Orders were given to the armed forces to take strict measures to impose full control on Sinai," Morsi told Egyptian state TV after the meeting.

"Those who did this will be punished, everyone will see how the new procedures will be like," he added.

Egypt's presidential office echoed the same sentiments, stated that those responsible for the attacks on Egyptian border guard in Sinai will be punished for their actions as their crime will not be tolerated.

"The security apparatuses are working in full power to reveal the identities of the culprits of the attacks executed in Rafah soon," presidential office spokesman Yasser Ali told Egyptian state TV.

The Admin of the Official Page of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the second official page of the SCAF, published a more strong-worded statement, vowing that the death of Egyptian soldiers will be avenged.

"Those are religion-less and infidels; the days have proven that only force will stop them. Anyone who has harmed our armed forces will pay the price," read the post on the page, which was titled "We swear to God that we will avenge."

Since Egypt's 2011 uprising, the country has witnessed vast security vacuum, especially in Sinai where a gas pipeline – which used to carry gas through Sinai into Israel and Jordan – was blown up fifteen times since the revolt.

Source : Ahram Online

The long road to Egypt's presidential palace

The last time Egyptians went to the polls in September 2005 to vote for a president in "multi-candidate elections," the now-defunct National Democratic Party secured 87 per cent of the vote (6.3 million votes) for then-president Hosni Mubarak. In retaliation for daring to run against the country's long-time ruler, the former regime punished liberal lawyer Ayman Nour, who had garnered 7 per cent (540,000 votes) of total ballots cast, with three years in prison on questionable fraud charges.

By most accounts, 30-40 million (60–75 per cent of eligible voters) are expected to head to the polls on Wednesday out of a total of 53 million eligible voters, for an election that will prove that last year's January 25 Revolution that ousted Mubarak has changed Egypt's political landscape and psyche forever.

Despite the fact that the revolution has not fundamentally altered Egypt's pre-February 2011 social and economic system – beyond sending Mubarak and a handful of his closest associates to trial – millions of ordinary people, who lived as silent spectators to Egypt's political life for generations, have finally entered onto the stage of history and will no longer allow others to determine their destiny.

In a recent two-part interview with flagship state daily Al-Ahram, veteran journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal underscored this historic awakening by the Egyptian public.

"Despite all the hard times [over the past year], those who had long been repressed have exploded. This was inevitable. The debate over the country's future has begun,” Heikal said.

Indeed, although Egypt's ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has more or less set the tempo of democratic transition over the last 15 months, the formerly repressed masses have put their signature on the events that have taken place during the post-revolution transitional period – which is about to come to an end.

In March of last year, 20 million people (40 per cent of eligible voters) took to the polls for a historic referendum on amending Mubarak’s 1971 constitution. They overwhelmingly endorsed the SCAF's proposals – backed by the Islamists and opposed by liberal forces – that presidential and parliamentary elections should precede the arduous task of drafting a more long-term constitution, and that Egypt's freely-elected parliament should set the terms for drafting a new national charter.

Soon afterward, in the spring of 2011, mass protests forced the SCAF to arrest Mubarak and his two sons and charge them with corruption and killing protesters. In November, the generals – facing mass protests against military rule – bowed to the popular will and promised to hand over power to an elected president by 30 June of this year.

Then, between late November and mid-January, more than 30 million Egyptians (60 per cent of eligible voters) participated in the country’s first free parliamentary elections in decades, which handed Egypt's Islamist forces – repressed for decades under the former regime – a solid majority in the People’s Assembly.

This time the people have many choices

In the past two months, the Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission (SPEC) – appointed by the SCAF to oversee presidential elections – settled on 13 out of 23 hopefuls to compete in this week's poll.

Although the range of candidates was to be more diverse than anything seen under Mubarak, SPEC’s 10 April decision to disqualify Muslim Brotherhood second-in-command Khairat El-Shater and Salafist preacher Hazem Abu-Ismail from the race –while allowing Mubarak-era PM Ahmed Shafiq to run despite the passage of a law that bans former Mubarak officials from holding public office – caused considerable dismay among a sizeable segment of the public.

The elimination of Abu-Ismail, whose popularity and pro-Sharia message had generated considerable excitement among Islamists and made his candidacy seem all but unstoppable, threatened at one point to derail the entire electoral process as bloody confrontations between his supporters and the army near the defence ministry in Abbasiya left at least 11 dead and hundreds injured – and hundreds more arrested – in early May.

But as the dust settled in Abbasiya, and as public opinion largely agreed to live with the SPEC-set rules of the game, opinion polls – though not necessarily a reliable indicator of public opinion – revealed that Egyptians were homing in on five leading contenders.

Two former members of the Mubarak regime, former foreign minister Amr Moussa and Mubarak's last prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, head into Wednesday’s vote with good chances of clinching a spot in the runoffs, slated for 16 and 17 June.

Meanwhile, two candidates who played an important role in the January 25 Revolution and who had already made names for themselves as opponents of Mubarak – Nasserist Hamdeen Sabbahi and former Brotherhood leader Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh – continued to show that they, too, stood a decent chance of reaching the runoff vote in June.

Finally, though he jumped into the race at the eleventh hour, Brotherhood candidate and head of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party Mohamed Mursi has made his way up slowly but surely into the top five, capitalising on the Brotherhood's unparalleled capacity for public mobilisation.

"All that is solid melts into air"

Judging by two opinion polls published two weeks ago by Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm and the Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, the stage seemed set for Moussa to become Egypt's next president after he garnered 40 per cent of the vote. At the same time, Abul-Fotouh seemed the only candidate poised to give Moussa a run for his money and the millions of Egyptian pounds spent by the latter on campaigning.

During the same period, sample voters consistently kept Sabbahi and Shafiq under 8 per cent according to most opinion polls, showing little or no enthusiasm for the Brotherhood Mursi.

However, in a sudden change in public mood following a 10 May televised debate between Moussa and Abul-Fotouh (perceived as lacklustre by many viewers), support for Sabbahi surpassed the 10 per cent mark for the first time. Mursi's and Shafiq’s numbers, meanwhile, skyrocketed, pushing both closer to the top two spots.

In another development reflecting the constant state of flux in voters’ moods, the three candidates who sat at the bottom for weeks (Mursi, Shafiq and Sabbahi) shocked campaigners for the two that had been on top for months (Moussa and Abul-Fotouh) after the announcement of preliminary results for Egypt's May 11-17 expatriate vote.

While Moussa and Abul-Fotouh still came in first and second among Egyptian expats in several countries, Sabbahi and Shafiq fared surprisingly well among Egyptians abroad. Mursi, meanwhile, reportedly swept countries with large Egyptian expat communities, including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Writing recently in independent daily Al-Shorouk, veteran liberal journalist Salama Ahmed Salama likened voters' perpetually shifting opinions to "sand dunes constantly shifting in the desert.”

Voter confusion could result from the difficulties newly-politicised, first-time voters typically encounter in making up their minds. However, it might also reflect the state of political stalemate witnessed by Egypt in recent months.

On the one hand, the forces of the former regime, reinvigorated by the SCAF’s success in combating the revolutionaries over the past year, have been fighting hard to preserve the fundamental basics of the Mubarak set-up. They have done this by granting a degree of reform while subjecting revolutionaries to never-ending smear campaigns. They have yet, however, to fully achieve their goals.

On the other hand, the forces that participated in last year's revolution have maintained considerable support among wide segments of workers and the poor, but have failed so far to coalesce around a specific political programme for change which could overcome the civil vs. religious divide between Islamists and non-Islamists. They have also failed to reach a consensus over a single pro-revolution presidential candidate.

Heikal alluded to this political impasse in his interview with Al-Ahram.

"The jumbled situation [of the revolution] happened because the revolutionary youth believe that they can lead the revolution, yet they're still not qualified to lead," he said. Meanwhile, "The SCAF wants to limit the revolution’s scope to merely ending Mubarak’s scheme to groom his son for the presidency," Heikal added.

This deadlock could be a reason for the inability of the bloc of candidates who participated in the revolution (Abul-Fotouh, Sabbahi and Mursi), or the competing bloc of former Mubarak men (Moussa and Shafiq), to capture a decisive electoral lead.

Given the state of limbo that Egypt’s revolution finds itself mired in only four days before Wednesday's vote, it comes as little surprise that a whopping 37 per cent of those asked told pollsters that they had yet to decide on a particular candidate.

The ever changing fortunes of the Muslim Brotherhood

The Muslim Brotherhood seemed politically unstoppable after it won a comfortable majority in Egypt's first post-Mubarak parliamentary polls last winter. But a three-month power struggle between the Brotherhood on the one hand and liberal groups and the SCAF on the other has left the group relatively weakened.

The Brotherhood invited additional condemnation from several quarters – including some of its own members – when it nominated leading group member Khairat El-Shater as presidential candidate in March, breaking a year-old promise not to contest the presidency. El-Shater was later replaced for legal reasons by current Brotherhood candidate Mursi.

For months now, a formidable anti-Brotherhood campaign has been waged by certain public and private media outlets by liberals and pro-SCAF figures who have attempted to slander the group by accusing it of monopolising all branches of government and scheming to dominate the constitution-drafting process.

The ferocity of the attacks on the Brotherhood appears to have paid dividends.

For one, the anti-Brotherhood campaign has likely led a considerable number of the group's sympathisers – who had voted for it in parliamentary elections – to decide against voting for the group's candidate in this week's presidential poll.

The Brotherhood’s troubles have also boosted the fortunes of underdog Shafiq, who has jumped on the Islamophobic bandwagon by making Mubarak-esque threats to crush the Islamists – and revolutionaries – if he is elected, in hopes of scoring points with Coptic and liberal voters.

What's more, attacks on the Brotherhood have unintentionally raised the fortunes of two leftist candidates who are proponents of a civil state – Sabbahi and labour lawyer Khaled Ali – in the eyes of some voters who oppose the notion of an Islamist state, but who also fear the return of Mubarak-era autocracy under Shafiq or Moussa.

To add insult to injury, the decision by the powerful Salafist Nour Party – Egypt’s second largest party and one-time ally of the Brotherhood in parliament – to throw its support behind Abul-Fotouh all but spelled the end of Mursi's presidential prospects.

A rising anti-Islamist sentiment seemed to be confirmed by a recent Gallup poll, which showed a sharp rise in the number of Egyptians who had voted for Islamists in parliamentary elections but who now express dismay with their performance in the People's Assembly and, as a result, are less likely to vote for them in the presidential elections.

"The Brotherhood is definitely in a difficult position now because of the Islamist-led parliament's failure to deal with the economy; allegations of vote-buying; and its manoeuvring to monopolise power," Mohamed Kadry Said, head of security studies at the Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, told Ahram Online.

Yet, despite poll results to the contrary, the recent last-minute success of the Brotherhood to mobilise hundreds of thousands of supporters in an impressive show of force for their candidate points to the fact that the 80-year-old Brotherhood will remain a powerful player in Egypt’s political future – especially given the absence of any viable leftist or liberal alternative.

From drawing tens of thousands of followers to packed campaign rallies, to forming the world's longest human chain, the Brotherhood has sent a powerful message to opponents that it remains a force to be reckoned with.

In fact, in the aftermath of the months-long power struggle with the SCAF, the Brotherhood and its candidate have sharpened their anti-SCAF rhetoric, recycling revolutionaries' calls for "the revolution to continue until justice for the martyrs is realised and social equality ensured," thus bolstering its anti-establishment credentials among Egypt’s poor.

"One cannot ignore…that the Brotherhood's massive organisational machinery – which pervades all اhamlets, villages, and governorates – has catapulted the group's candidate towards the top of the list," Salama wrote in Al-Shorouk.

Egypt's political future post-SCAF?

Many of those who supported the revolution from the outset doubted all along that the ruling military council would actually hand over power to a civilian administration, as the council had promised the day after Mubarak's ouster and again following November's bloody street battles between protesters and military personnel.

In fact, a small group of activists have called – so far unsuccessfully – for a boycott of Wednesday’s presidential poll, arguing that the ruling generals are simply "putting on a show" aimed at buying time or "deceiving" the public, and that they actually have no intention of returning to their barracks anytime soon.

However, many Egyptians from across the political spectrum have maintained the belief since February of last year that the generals understand perfectly well that the people’s desire for democratic transformation – embodied by a willingness to make great sacrifices over the course of their 15-month struggle – could not be derailed by gimmicks or Mubarak-style repression.

In fact, Said told Ahram Online that the SCAF, contrary to widely circulated rumours, had not necessarily thrown its weight behind any particular candidate, since it wants to see free and fair elections and a stable political situation. The generals, he added, remain confident that they can deal in their own way with anyone elected president by the people.

Over the past year, the SCAF has proven its ability to act in a conciliatory manner and make concessions to opposition forces in order to avert major crises, said Said. "The holding of elections in and of itself was a major concession by SCAF to the people," he noted.

Nonetheless, the complete transfer of power to a civilian administration – with an elected president following an elected parliament – will by no means guarantee the absence of the SCAF's intervention in politics, if and when the generals believe that their vested interests are threatened.

But for the time being, the SCAF – on some level – has had no choice but to bow to the popular will, which demands free and transparent elections.

There are no guarantees that an elected president (no matter who wins) or parliament (now led by the Brotherhood) will provide easy answers to the country’s economic crisis, or invent quick ways to satisfy a population thirsty not only for voting rights but for a semblance of social and economic equality.

"Any new president [who seeks reform for the benefit of the people] will inherit a bureaucracy in the state machinery that remains untouched by the revolution," Heikal told Al-Ahram, highlighting some of the nightmare scenarios with which Egypt's new commander-in-chief could be forced to contend.

Few can envision how elected officials might face off against the masses of angry workers, poverty-stricken peasants or marginalised slum dwellers who voted them into office in the event that the latter's expectations are dashed.

"There will be a 100-day honeymoon between voters and the new president, like those seen in older democracies. But at the end of this period, if the president has not acted in a transparent manner and set clear timetables for improving people’s lives, many could return to Tahrir Square to voice their dissatisfaction,” Said added, referring to Cairo's iconic protest venue.

At the end of the day, only one thing is for sure: Egyptians will make history on Wednesday and Thursday, as they first began doing on 25 January of last year.

Source : Ahram English

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nothing else to say just a7a

Poster for Mohamed Mohsen, another victim of the SCAF, artwork by Carlos Latuff (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It's so easy to read what I will write now but believe me It's so hard to live it in real, no one can imagine that the SCAF will reach this level of violence and will be aggressive as much It was this day, I can't deny that they were so smart, I can't deny that they are the most professional in playing the dirty games.

everyone who knows how the SCAF is dealing with the protests and the demonstrations he would expect it, It was so clear that they are trying to increase the distance between the revolution and the Egyptian people.

over a week the dirty media was doing a great job to describe the people who are protesting beside and note what I said " beside the ministry of defense, even with 700 M away, but the headlines everyday were like " Abo Ismael sons still protesting in front of the ministry of defense - a bloody night between Abo Ismael sons and Abbaseya's people " for 7 days more than 75% of the Egyptian media were publishing the same headlines trying to describe the protesters as a fan of someone.

I am not one of Abo Ismael sons even I am not a son of any presidential candidates, because I don't believe that It will be fair elections, anyway after a bloody night " Sunday " clashing with the thugs in Abbaseya in front of El Demerdash hospital, I began to feel that SCAF is preparing to end the protests in Abbaseya I expected the violence but I didn't expect this crime.

the clashes began so fast no one knew how It happened and who began but what I saw is the tear gas bombs covering Abbaseya sky with the Gas then the Military police forces moving to Abbaseya destroying everything in their way the field hospital and the doctors and beating the wounded.

arresting and going more and more to El Noor Mosque, they entered the Mosque with their shoes arresting the men and the women inside, you know!! It was like a movie, you run from the Mosque going to the streets to find the thugs waiting with their knifes to kill you, I think that there's no need to tell more It's so clear in the videos.

I just have some questions and I need answers,

until now we the ministry of interior didn't arrest the thugs whom were using the knifes and the guns and a lot of photographer took clear photos for them

is there any " soldier " in the Egyptian army able to leave his beard growing? , I am asking this questions regarding to Tantawi's visit to his wounded soldiers in the Military hospital

there's a lot a lot a lot of questions have no answers " I doubt " we all know the answers but the most of us trying to avoid saying It, every time any clashes happens they are able just to blame the protesters, but the other side " BIG NO " .. I think It's the time for saying A7A

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El Baradei and Abbaseya Clashes

Muhammed El Baradei

Mohamed ElBaradei described the comments of the military council about the clashes near to the Defense Ministry as a “tragedy.”

some of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces members arranged a press meeting at noon on Thursday to comment on the clashes between anti-military demonstrators and unidentified thugs that placed about seven victims and a lot of wounded on Wednesday.

On Twitter, ElBaradei opened fire on "the comments of Major General Hassan al-Roweiny, member of the military council, in which he said that he asked the demonestrators to return to their homes until the real perpetrators of the attack are known, adding that the demonstrators refused to be protected from the unknown attackers."

The previous head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who pulled out of the presidential race in January, said the military council and the government are either unable of providing security or they accomplices.

ElBaradei also criticized Parliament, as the sole elected authority, and its behavior toward the lives lost.

“The success of the revolution is inescapable and the ousted regime will go away,” he finished.

scene of Abbaseya clashes

meanwhile at Abbaseya The scene turned out to be familiar: streets filled with rubble and smashed glass; torn down sign posts leading to barricades of scrap metal manned by weary volunteers; tired doctors outside a makeshift field hospital; tents filled with young men and women socializing, resting, planning or doing daily activities.

This is a sit-in that has just seen an atrocity.

Over the past year, street combats have erupted on a near-monthly basis between anti-government demonstrators and various combinations of military, security forces and so-called “honorable citizens,” known to others as thugs. The latest round, near the Defense Ministry in Abbasseya, placed at least 11 people dead and scores injured.

It is always unknown how these clashes start out and how they increase. When they do, they dramatically change the composition of the protest and the motivations behind it. But the latest round of violence, in Abbasseya, suggests that some protesters might be moving into a newly confrontational - and armed - form of resistance and self-defense, to the consternation of many activists.

The sit-in began on Friday, after supporters of disqualified presidential candidate Hazem Salah Abu Ismail moved their protest from in front of the Presidential Elections Commission to the Defense Ministry near Abbasseya. After some initial confrontations with plain-clothed individuals on Saturday, other political groups joined the sit-in, in front of Ain Shams University, which is adjacent to the ministry, to protest the military council’s rule and what they see as irregularities in the presidential elections process.

“The sit-in is no longer about Abu Ismail, it is against what will be fraudulent elections in the presence of corrupt judges on the elections commission and Article 28 of the Constitutional Declaration [which disallows appeals against the commission’s decisions],” said Abu Ismail supporter Tareq Hefny, who has been present since the sit-in in front of the elections commission.

Groups like the April 6 Youth Movement and Youth for Justice and Freedom, as well as non-affiliated individuals, joined the sit-in.

“I came to protest the SCAF's decision that the constitution be written while they are in power,” said Mohamed Gad, a 22 year-old member of the Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh presidential campaign. As Gad pointed out, the majority of the sit-in does not comprise of Salafis or just Abu Ismail supporters.

After the clashes that began early Wednesday morning and continued until noon, many at the Abbasseya sit-in were left pondering the bloody turn of events, and what it means for them. They were especially upset with the complete absence of security to stop the violence until Wednesday at noon, after many had already been killed.

“I started coming two days ago, to increase pressure on the rule of the military council, but stayed when people began to get attacked. This morning thugs came into our camps and literally slaughtered some of those in the sit-in when they left,” said Rehab Ali, a 17-year-old high school student.

Ali comes to the sit-in behind her parent’s back, but as a strong supporter of the April 6 Youth Movement, it is important for her to be at sit-ins, whatever the cause, when people’s lives are threatened. “If people like me don’t go to the front lines, the thugs will advance and have their way with any revolutionary,” she said.

Early Wednesday morning, the protesters were attacked by armed assailants, beginning with tear gas and rock throwing, and escalating to birdshot fire and live ammunition, according to eyewitnesses. The fighting spilled onto the streets of the neighborhood’s residential areas as protesters and their attackers exchanged blows using a variety of weapons.

Eyewitnesses say that during an ebb in the violence, protesters who left the sit-in to go to work or grab breakfast were attacked, and some were killed on the way to the metro station. Presidential candidate and legal activist Khaled Ali said on Wednesday that in total 20 bodies were identified from both ends of the barricade.

“At one point in the early morning I saw seven people gunned down in front of me by a machine gun,” said Mohamed Samy, an activist at the sit-in.

The sit in was relatively small, with around 500 constant participants, but once the clashes started, the protesters gathered support from various corners. Even Al-Azhar scholars showed up, led by the imam of Al-Azhar Mosque, Salah Nassar, to express their condemnation of the attacks and their solidarity with the protesters.

The introduction of violence to protests can change their character, making people behave in ways they might not normally. Allegations of protesters wreaking havoc among Abbasseya residents, vandalizing private property using weapons, and torturing those they captured, have only increased the rift between the protesters and their neighbors as well as marred the image of a “peaceful protest.”

At the same time, the prevalence of weapons among the protesters took a more pronounced turn. “Masked men appeared on our side with automatic weapons and fought back the thugs who were attacking us with the same weapons,” said Ahmad Aggour, a 24-year-old activist. On the night that eye-witnesses claim they were being shot at indiscriminately within the camps, this was initially welcome news for Aggour, but not for long.

“Once they started running after the thugs in the side streets of Abbasseya, I realized it could put innocent civilians from the neighborhood at risk,” he added.

Aggour overheard some of at the sit-in say that the masked gunmen were coming to their aid. “A group of protesters in the sit-in supported having automatic weapons on their side because they feel like since the revolution there has been no security or law enforcement by the government,” said Aggour. He and many other protesters voiced their rejection of bearing arms.

Among the protesters, the kinds of weaponry used allegedly for self-defense have been upgraded from previous sit-ins. It is not uncommon to see large knives brandished when scouts at the entrances sound off a security threat. Some even had homemade birdshot guns called fard.

While many of those participating in the sit-in do not deny that protesters might have at times been guilty of these allegations, they see it as a more complex situation.

“The fard has become incredibly common in Egypt. It is difficult to blame someone for carrying it when they saw their friends killed by an AK-47 machine gun just the night before,” said Islam al-Eissawy, who witnessed much of the clashes.

Eissawy said that some protesters may have indeed engaged violently with some Abbasseya residents, but that they were mostly overzealous reactions after snipers shot into the camps, killing some protesters. “It is very difficult to control yourself after seeing a young friend's brains fall out of their head in front of you,” said Badreya Farghali, who assists at the field hospital and saw her colleague at the hospital, Abul Hassan Ibrahim, a third-year medical student at Ain Shams university, shot in the head while trying to assist the wounded.

Many known activists have objected to the perceived turn to violence among the protesters.

“This isn't the first time we've been shot at with live ammunition, using rocks and Molotov cocktails put a realistic distance between defending our existence and asking for martyrdom,” activist Alaa Abd El Fattah wrote on Twitter, trying to explain that revolutionaries were able to stand to live ammunition without taking arms and escalating to the point of reciprocal armed combat.

Abd El Fattah has been critical of some of the alleged violent practices from protesters at the sit-in, including the reports of torturing captives and calls to carry weapons.

“The weapons here are mostly what we caught other people with. Otherwise, it is very unlikely that anyone from here will ever antagonize people from Abbasseya. It would be very stupid to be violent to an entire neighborhood that is right next to us,” said Sameh Ahmed al-Masry, formerly a member of the Hazem Salah Abu Ismail campaign and currently a self-proclaimed spokesperson for the sit-in.

After Wednesday's clashes, many other activists who were against the sit-in joined in protest of the bloodshed. “Sit-ins have always been a legitimate expression of anger, especially after lives are lost,” said prominent blogger and activist Wael Khalil.

Many protesters are saying they will continue to hold their sit-in, despite statements from SCAF deputy leader Sami Anan suggesting that the military may be willing to leave power a month earlier than previously stated.

At the same time, tensions between Abbasseya residents and protesters are increasing. According to many shopkeepers and coffee shop owners who refused to be identified, people in the neighborhood are fed up with living in a state of fear that clashes could once again spill into the side streets and terrorize innocent residents. “Even if, as the protesters say, the attacks are instigated by government hired thugs,” said one coffee shop owner, “the sit-in has to end.”

Source : Al Masry Al Youm

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