Gunbattle fought in Cairo mosque as Egypt mulls Brotherhood ban

Discussion in 'Latest US & World News' started by Mandrake, Aug 17, 2013.

  1. Mandrake

    Mandrake New Member

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    By Issam Abdallah and Crispian Balmer

    http://ca.news.yahoo.com/muslim-brotherhood-calls-rallies-across-egypt-day-bloodshed-002114268.html

    CAIRO (Reuters) - Security forces cleared a Cairo mosque after a gunbattle with followers of the Muslim Brotherhood on Saturday, while Egypt's army-backed government, facing deepening chaos, considered banning the Islamist group.

    Three Reuters witnesses saw gunmen shoot from a window of the al-Fath mosque, where supporters of deposed president Mohamed Mursi had taken shelter during ferocious confrontations in the heart of the Egyptian capital on Friday.

    Another gunman was shown on television shooting from the mosque's minaret and soldiers outside returning fire. Hours later, police moved in and secured the building, making scores of arrests as crowds on the streets cheered them on.

    It was not clear if anyone died in the clashes - the fourth day of violence in Egypt, which has killed almost 800 people. Troubles were also reported in the second city Alexandria, where an office run by the Muslim Brotherhood was set ablaze.

    With anger rising on all sides, Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi proposed disbanding the Brotherhood, raising the stakes in a bloody struggle between the state and Islamists for control of the Arab world's most populous nation.

    "We are not facing political divisions, we are facing a war being waged by extremists developing daily into terrorism," presidential political adviser Mostafa Hegazy told reporters.

    "We will win this war not only with security procedures, but according to the law and within the framework of human rights."

    If Beblawi's proposal to disband the Brotherhood is acted on, it would force the group underground and could herald large-scale arrests against its members placed outside the law.

    Many Western allies have denounced the recent wave of killings, including the United States, alarmed by the mayhem in a country which has a strategic peace treaty with Israel and operates the Suez Canal, a major artery of global trade.

    However, Saudi Arabia threw its weight behind the army-backed government on Friday, accusing its old foes in the Muslim Brotherhood of trying to destabilize Egypt.

    The health ministry said 173 people died in clashes across Egypt on Friday, including 95 in central Cairo, after the Brotherhood called a "Day of Rage" to denounce a crackdown on its followers on Wednesday that killed at least 578 people.

    Fifty-seven policemen died over the past three days, the interior ministry said.

    Among those killed on Friday was a son of Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie, shot dead close to al-Fath mosque, which was rapidly transformed into a makeshift morgue and a refuge for hundreds of Mursi's supporters, looking to escape the bloodshed.

    The building was surrounded overnight and police fired volleys of tear gas into the carpeted prayer hall in the early afternoon, filling the hall with billowing white smoke and leaving those inside gasping for breath.

    Soon afterwards gunshots rang out from both sides.

    MASS ARRESTS

    Egyptian authorities said they rounded up more than 1,000 Islamists after Friday's protests, showing one handcuffed man on television with an automatic gun on his lap.

    Security sources said Mohamed Al-Zawahiri, the brother of al Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri, had also been detained.

    "Friday was a very bad, ugly day. There were attacks on police stations, ministries. The situation is very bad," the prime minister told reporters. "There will be no reconciliation with those whose hands have been stained with blood and who turned weapons against the state and its institutions."

    The Brotherhood was officially dissolved by Egypt's military rulers in 1954, but registered itself as a non-governmental organization in March in a response to a court case brought by opponents of the group who were contesting its legality.

    Founded in 1928, the movement has deep roots in the provinces and has a legally registered political arm - the Freedom and Justice Party - which was set up in 2011 after unrest that led to the downfall of the autocratic Hosni Mubarak.

    The Brotherhood won all five elections that followed the toppling of Mubarak, and Mursi governed the country for just a year until he was undermined by mammoth rallies called by critics who denounced his rule as incompetent and partisan.

    Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi says he removed Mursi from office on July 3 to protect the country from possible civil war.

    CHURCHES DESTROYED

    Brotherhood spokesman Gehad El-Haddad said on Saturday the police had started to arrest the sons and daughters of the organization's leadership in an effort to gain leverage.

    Despite the bloodshed, the Islamist group has urged its supporters to take to the streets every day this coming week, but there was no sign of large rallies by late Saturday.

    "Our rejection of the coup regime has become an Islamic, national and ethical obligation that we can never abandon," said the Brotherhood, which has accused the military of plotting the downfall of Mursi to regain the levers of power.

    In the first attack of its kind yet reported, a bomb blast ripped through the garden wall of the Egyptian consulate in the city of Benghazi on Saturday in neighboring Libya, injuring a security guard. No one claimed immediate responsibility.

    Worryingly for the Egyptian army, violence was reported across the country on Friday, with deaths reported in at least eight cities and towns, suggesting it might struggle to impose control on the vast, largely desert state.

    The government said 12 churches had been attacked and burned on Friday, blaming the Islamists for the destruction.

    Foreign journalists in Cairo said they faced regular harassment as they tried to report on the clashes, with a number detained by police and civilian vigilante groups unhappy with coverage of the disturbances.

    (Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh, Tom Perry, Michael Georgy, Tom Finn, Mohamed Abdellah, Ahmed Tolba and Omar Fahmy in Cairo and Ayman al-Werfalli in Libya, Writing by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Andrew Roche)
     
    waltky and (deleted member) like this.
  2. Mandrake

    Mandrake New Member

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    Well, I guess that's it folks. A crazy meathead movement to take over Egypt that has struggled to do so since 1928, came to power for a year and then was smashed utterly, with the last hold outs losing a gun battle with police as crowds cheered the police on. Hurrah to the people of Egypt!:salute:
     
  3. MGB ROADSTER

    MGB ROADSTER Banned

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    Muslims are killing Muslims !
    Arabs are killing Arabs !!
    Shia hate Sunni, Sunni hate Shia , ALL hate the Palestinians.
    What's new ?
     
  4. skeptic-f

    skeptic-f New Member

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    The Army is assuming they can make the Muslim Brotherhood go away again. Now the MB has tasted the forbidden fruit of power, they are not going to go quietly into the dark again. The only question is whether they will be a strong terrorist movement or an outright rebellion. Neither will do anything good for Egypt or Egyptians.
     
  5. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Shot while tryin' to escape...
    :gun:
    Egypt unrest: 36 prisoners die in 'escape bid' as state sets about wiping out Muslim Brotherhood
    Monday 19 August 2013 > The Muslim Brotherhood described the incident as "cold-blooded killing"
     
  6. alexa

    alexa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    This is disputed. The earlier version, that is not the Egyptian State Media version said 38 had been killed after managing to get a policeman in the van as a bargaining hostage resulting in the rest of the police throwing gas in and shooting them all. That number has now been updated to 52.
     
  7. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Cut off the head of a snake and the body will die...
    :cool:
    Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood appears at risk of falling apart
    August 20,`13 — The world’s most influential Islamist movement is in danger of collapse in the land of its birth — its leaders imprisoned, its supporters slain and its activists branded as terrorists in what many are describing as the worst crisis to confront Egypt’s 85-year-old Muslim Brotherhood.
    See also:

    For Muslim Brotherhood, a Painful Day of Reckoning
    August 16, 2013 — A month of deadly conflict between security forces and the mostly Islamist supporters of Egypt's ousted president has battered the country's once-powerful Muslim Brotherhood, leaving it with diminishing prospects for restoring its former pre-eminence.
     
  8. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Two more MB leaders rounded up...
    :woot:
    Two more Brotherhood leaders arrested in Egypt
    Thu, Aug 22, 2013 - LAWSUIT: Former vice president Mohamed ElBaradei has been sued for ‘betrayal of trust’ over quitting to protest the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood
    See also:

    U.S. can't force democracy on Egypt
    Tue August 20, 2013 > Anthony Cordesman: Democracy needs experienced political parties and leaders; Cordesman: Egypt had no real democratic center at the ready to make democracy work; Cutting off U.S. aid to Egypt won't be that significant to the military, Cordesman writes; He says the U.S. needs to help develop democracy that comes from within Egypt
     
  9. reallybigjohnson

    reallybigjohnson Banned

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    No no no no no! They are doing it all wrong. They need to say that the are sorry and that they changed their minds and want to make it up to the Muslim Brotherhood. Invite them all to a big gala in their honor and then after they eat some food (made from pork). At the end of the dinner they need to tell the MB members that they have eaten pork and will burn in hell and then burn the mother(*)(*)(*)(*)ers alive in the building while making pig noises the entire time and reminding them they are going to hell when they die. :D
     
  10. Abu Sina

    Abu Sina New Member

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    you do realise that Muslims can eat pork in certain circumstances don't you
     
  11. reallybigjohnson

    reallybigjohnson Banned

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    When. I thought it was forbidden and one of the reasons that there are so many angry Muslim extremists. Who wouldn't be pissed at not being able to eat a bacon cheeseburger or bacon wrapped italian sausage or bacon pancakes for breakfast.
     
  12. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Granny says dem radical Mooslamics is tryin' to take over Egypt...
    :grandma:
    Egypt Accuses Brotherhood of Forming Military Wing
    February 09, 2014 ~ Egypt's Interior Ministry has accused the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood of forming a "military wing" to attack police and security forces.
     

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