Egypt’s Morsi gone, military brings hope not coup
©VoiceOfTheCopts.org
As the country rejoices, Egyptians fear jihad will turn into civil war. The military removed and jailed President Morsi on the demands of the people, and now Morsi’s angry remnant – defenders of the dishonored, ousted Muslim Brotherhood -- roam the streets in bloodthirsty revenge. Instigated by President Morsi’s June 26th and 28th speeches, the Muslim Brotherhood and their sympathizers terrorize Egyptian neighborhoods. All who are happy to have Morsi gone – ordinary citizens and Egyptian military -- becomes their enemy. Where does the United States stand on this battleground?
Now, after Morsi, Egypt’s military plays the role of transitional authority and guardian without taking power. The army has not seized power from the government or sought violence. The military has not grabbed positions, control, or command as a consequence of the people’s rebellion. Instead, it continues to support Egypt’s revolutionary democratic movement and keep law and order after removing the President. The army is facilitating the appropriate legal course and changeover in the government according to guidelines provided in Egypt’s previous constitution -- correctly “freezing” Morsi’s Sharia law constitution rejected by the majority.
Egypt’s military performed dutifully toward its countrymen resolving the June 30th issue with perfect timing as it rejected the bait of “dialogue.” This resulted in a miraculous turnover for Egypt. Unlike SCAF’s dirty compromises after the overthrow of Mubarak, this army is supervising the transference of power from Morsi’s regime to the president of the High Constitutional Court, Adly Monsour, who is now the interim President of Egypt. In siding responsibly with freedom fighters Egypt’s army has forgone political empowerment. This is the stunning part; the part that the media around the world seems to be missing.
Claiming Egypt’s military action as a military coup is dangerous for this plays into the hands of the radical views of a vindictive and deceptive Muslim Brotherhood now threatening warfare on Egypt. It is as wrong as the “Arab Spring” label before it. Some in the media even suggest that the July 3rd removal of the terror-backed, Shariah law advocate overreaching his executive powers to build a parallel Saudi-like brown squad and much worse, defies democratic principles. Even if this were true, Egypt must first clean house of democracy’s enemies in order to begin its democratic process. Innocent Egyptians are at risk if, based upon such views, the U.S. halts aid (the $1.3 billion commitment) to an Egyptian military aligned with freedom-fighters.
Why did the army act as a trustworthy steward of the people’s non-violent Tamarud (Rebel) movement, intervening and demanding Morsi comply with their petition request? It is difficult to say. There is no indication that the military, which just played the role of mediator and protector of the people, will turn the tables in a power grab nor is there evidence to the contrary. More importantly, the army remains unified against the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt’s sequel depends on one figure, Commander-in-chief Abdel Fattah El Sisi.
While in office, Commander-in-chief Morsi moved around army officers like chess pieces securing in part loyalty to his regime in many areas as in the replacement of Mohammad Tantawi, head commander of Egyptian Armed Forces, with Abdel Fattah El Sisi on 12 August 2012. Given more time to complete his gradual plan, Morsi was to make a total overturn of military leadership to Muslim Brotherhood loyalists, including El Sisi, who was former head of military intelligence under Mubarak. Now it is El Sisi who put the army at odds with Morsi. He responded to the country’s unrest as the Tamarud petition grew with millions of signatures, making multiple requests for all political interests in Egypt to come together for talks – including freedom-fighters, Muslim Brotherhood, and Morsi. Morsi refused and no talks occurred.
Referring to the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Morsi regime, El Sisi made known his loyalties before June 30th protests when he said, “When we see that Egyptians are under threat and we are not able to defend them, it is better we die.” Finally, on behalf of Egyptians, El Sisi delivered a 48-hour notice to Morsi to leave office, which Morsi rejected. After handcuffing the President on July 3rd, the army naturally began to arrest and jail Brotherhood figures and to dismantle their power structure out of fear that certain leaders would instigate violence. This included the arrest of Khairat el-Shaiter, Vice Morshed (vice-spiritual guide) of the Muslim Brotherhood, who was declared ineligible for a 2012 presidential bid because he escaped a seven year prison sentence for money laundering to the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
Confiscating classified documents from el-Shaiter’s villa residence upon his arrest, the military received information damaging to America’s pro-democracy position. The army claims these files show the U.S. gave more than $8 billion to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood upon el-Shaiter’s White House visit in April of 2012. Now the central focus of the Egyptian army in its battle against the Muslim Brotherhood is on the U.S. administration.
Upon Morsi’s removal, the U.S. ran to Morsi’s defense by threatening the Egyptian army with cutting off U.S. aid. Unfazed, an army spokesman responded with a statement pertaining to the army’s plans to publicly unveil the contents of the incriminating documents. The Egyptian military intends to embarrass the U.S. using Egyptian TV and the international media to air court hearings concerning these documents which link U.S. interests to the rise and support of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Other hidden documents discovered by the army in Brotherhood Al Fayyum offices reveal that Morsi received fewer votes in the 2012 Presidential election than his opponent, Shafiq. Suspicion of U.S. involvement in this matter runs high among Egyptians. It has from the day Morsi was announced President. Back then the U.S. administration was silent on the issue of Egypt’s election fraud.
The U.S. also overlooked the mysterious delay in the announcement of Morsi’s win (some say America was behind it) and, without comment, accepted a reversal of opinion from the electoral judge on the issue of unopened voting polls in Coptic neighborhoods where the judge pointedly condemned it and then suddenly dismissed it as irrelevant. How is it that these items were excluded from the efforts of the Obama administration to “broaden engagement” in the Egyptian post-revolutionary scene.
The tacit U.S. of recent past is now vocal. The Obama administration asserts its influence by requesting Morsi’s return. Before June 30th, U.S. concerns tried to suppress pro-democracy freedom forces particularly through private meetings initiated by the U.S. ambassador. The U.S. now questions Egyptian protocol regarding its military. We should be doubly outraged toward America and German-led Europe in calling for the reinstatement of Morsi to lead Egyptians -- who neither voted in fair elections to have him nor want him after a one-year term of anti-democratic maneuvers – for that calling of a reversal of freedom’s magnanimous feat demonstrates America’s allegiance to the lies of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Thankfully, the army looks to avoid bloodshed by keeping Morsi under house arrest protected from a disenchanted Muslim Brotherhood ready to assassinate him and spark mayhem – legitimizing violence to hold on to power. So far, the military’s power is the power of the people. We do not see a military coup in Egypt, but an Egyptian army honoring the sea of waving red cards stating “get out” – the only “weapon” wielded by freedom protesters to rid a deplorable ruler. In a soccer match, a referee pushes the red card into the face of a foul player in the field to signal him unacceptable and too dangerous to remain in the game. Now Mohammad Morsi is out of the game. He must stay that way for good.
Ashraf Ramelah is founder and president of Voice of the Copts, a non-profit organization educating on Christian persecution in Egypt and intolerance of Islamic regimes. He is a board member of Stop Islamization
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Bill Roggio
15th July 2013 - The Long War Journal
A group of jihadists from Burma, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Pakistan are reported to have formed a "brigade" to fight the Burmese government. A Burmese branch of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami that is based in Karachi, Pakistan and has been in operation since the late 1980s is likely involved in recruiting Pakistanis to fight in Burma.
"A brigade of Mujahedeen from Burma, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan under the leadership of Abu Safiya and Abu Arif reached Burma," according to a statement released at Kavkaz Center, a propaganda arm of the al Qaeda-linked Islamic Caucasus Emirate.
The statement was accompanied by nine photographs of members of the brigade. The jihadists are dressed in military fatigues and most are wearing green headbands. The men are armed with AK-47 assault rifles and PKM machine guns. The men are seen marching in formation, training with their weapons, and praying. Scores of fighters appear together in some of the pictures.
The photographs were originally published at Arrahmah.com, an Indonesian website that glorifies jihad in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Indonesia, and in other theaters.
The group claims it killed 17 Burmese soldiers in its first ambush of a military convoy, and "a few days ago they slaughtered three men including a Buddhist monk." The claims could not be confirmed.
The statement at Kavkaz also noted that Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah who is currently serving a jail sentence for forming an al Qaeda branch in Indonesia, called for Muslims to wage jihad against the Burmese government.
"By the will of Allah, we can destroy you and your people like Russia, the socialist-communist country, or like America that will be destroyed soon," Bashir threatened in a letter to the president of Burma.
The Burmese branch of Pakistan's Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, a Pakistani terror group closely tied to al Qaeda, operates a branch that is active in Burma. Known as Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Arakan, the group was founded by Maulana Abdul Quddus, a Burmese Muslim who fled to Pakistan sometime in the early 1980s, according to Amir Rana, the author ofA to Z of Jehadi Organizations in Pakistan.
Quddus said he fought the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s after settling in Karachi and joining Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami.
"The Afghan war started while I was studying and I went many times to Afghanistan at the behest of Harakat ul-Jihad-e-Islami and had the honor of participating in jihad," he said in an interview in 1998. "I stayed in Afghanistan from 1982 to 1988."
He formed Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Arakan in 1988. The goal was to liberate the Muslim-dominated Burmese state of Rakhine, which was formerly known as Arakan.
Quddus and his Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Arakan are based in Korangi Town in Karachi, Pakistan. The group has an extensive network of madrassas and charities.
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, the parent organization, is closely tied to al Qaeda, and its Brigade 313 serves as al Qaeda's military arm in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Ilyas Kashmiri, the former emir of Brigade 313 who was killed in a US drone strike in June 2011, also served as a member of al Qaeda's military committee.
Terror groups call for jihad in Burma
As tensions between Rohingya Muslims in Burma and the government have escalated over the past several years, calls for jihad in the South Asia country from numerous jihadist groups have increased.
One of the most blatant calls for Muslims to wage jihad in Burma came from a senior cleric and spokesman from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Abu Dher Azzam, who is also known as Abu Dher al Burmi. In the statement, which was released on Nov. 28, 2012 and was obtained and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group, Azzam assailed the Burmese government and accused China and Germany of supporting "these massacres and this genocide" in Burma.
"Rise O servants of Allah to help your brothers and sisters!," Azzam proclaimed. "Rise to save your sons and daughters! Do your best in jihad, O guardians of creed and [monotheism], against the enemies of Allah the idolatrous Buddhists, and target the most important installations of Burma, China and Germany, and their interests and the interests of the United Nations, which supports these massacres and this genocide in Arakan."
Other groups that have offered support for Burmese Muslims include the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Shabaab, al Qaeda, and various jihadist media outlets such as the Shumukh al-Islam forum, the Global Islamic Media Front, al Qaeda's Vanguards of Khorasan magazine, and the Turkish jihadist magazine Islamic World.
Bill Roggio is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of The Long War Journal
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In Egypt, the Popularity of Islamism Shall Endure
Reuel Marc Gerecht
12th July 2013 - The Washington Post
How will the Egyptian army’s coup against the elected Muslim Brotherhood government affect Islamism, intellectually and politically the most consequential movement in the Middle East since the 1960s? Do the brethren see their fall as a rejection of their religious beliefs? Should they?
Historically, it’s impossible to imagine Islamic militancy without the Brotherhood. Founded in 1928 against British imperialism and a rapidly Westernizing Egypt, the Brotherhood became the flagship for Sunni fundamentalism. Secretive but populist, contemptuous of state-paid clergy, intellectually syncretistic (socialism, fascism and European anti-Semitism blended into their “authentic” faith), the brethren became widely popular in Egypt as the army’s experimentation with radical Arabism and crony capitalism failed.
The real strength of the Brotherhood movement, along the Nile and beyond, has always been its public faith and private virtue and its appealing historical narrative for Muslims who see the prophet Muhammad as a paragon — a people’s greatness flows from moral rectitude. The downfall of the general-turned-president Hosni Mubarak two years ago caught the brethren off guard. Thirty years ago, they opted for coexistence with the security state: Abjuring politics, they focused on missionary and social work. They became “neo-fundamentalists” who envisioned the collapse of the Egyptian police state one convert at a time. With the intense democratic debates among Arab intellectuals that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Iraq war, Islamic fundamentalist movements increasingly adopted a democratic lexicon and started, however tepidly, to struggle with the contradictions between popular sovereignty and the Holy Law.
The brethren’s embrace of democratic politics always hinged on an old-fashioned Sunni assumption that the majority of Muslims couldn’t be bad Muslims. The recent massive demonstrations in Egypt certainly show that many Egyptians who voted repeatedly for the Brotherhood — in parliamentary elections in 2011 and 2012, in the presidential election last summer and to adopt the new constitution in December — hit the streets against them. This has shocked some of the brethren and provoked Islamists elsewhere to reflect on the intersection of religion and politics.
Although religious tyranny secularizes society (see Christendom/the West), the Brotherhood’s “rule” was probably too short, ineffectual (real power remained with Egypt’s army and security services) and morally tepid. Women’s social status when President Mohamed Morsi fell was about the same as when he was elected. Western “bikini tourism” and easy access to alcohol — controversial issues for Islamic fundamentalists — had not been touched. Tied up in the elemental problems of governing with little authority, the Brotherhood hadn’t really formulated, let alone tested, its conception of the “good life.”
For the secular opposition, this is a big, and probably lethal, problem. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, religious zeal among the common faithful has been burned out by the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s and three decades of corrupt, oppressive clerical rule. Onetime Islamists have become trenchant critics of theocracy. Similarly, the appeal of secularism in Iran was widespread in the 1950s and ’60s but died slowly under the shah, as a Westernizing dictatorship and the economics of a modern centralized state bulldozed traditional society and kindled a politicized religious awakening. The electoral triumph of Turkey’s Islamist-friendly Justice and Development Party was also long in coming, partly because the Turkish military checked the democratic expression of the country’s religious hinterland. It is inconceivable that the corrupt and cruel Egyptian army could stage-manage a better evolution to a non-Islamist democracy than had the Turkish army, which was, comparatively, neither corrupt nor cruel.
What the Arab Middle East has not seen since before World War I — when Egypt experienced a brief efflorescence of secular liberalism — is a real competition between Arab liberals and devout Muslims who see politics largely as an extension of their faith. The latter is, unquestionably, still a majority in Egypt. (The Holy Law is the law for most Egyptians, who have been living outside the country’s calcified, ineffectual legal system of imported European codes.)
Many young secular Egyptians — and their Western fans — appear not to know this. They imagine having a liberal democracy in which advocates of sharia and the Islamic tradition cannot win an election, write the constitution or otherwise shape society except along secular lines. Westernization has been so successful in Egypt that perhaps a third of the population may no longer share basic cultural mores with the religious majority. Egyptian liberals, and the rest of the intellectually diverse opposition to the Brotherhood, turned to the street and the army — Egypt’s real ruler since 1952 — to compete. It’s an umbilical relationship that is now unlikely to be broken.
Morsi, an incompetent, boring and inarticulate demagogue, will not return. But Egypt’s enormous systemic problems remain. The military may try to jury-rig elections in which the brethren could compete but not triumph. Mindful of recent Turkish history, senior officers will not allow vengeful Islamists to compete, win and neuter the army. Egypt’s problems are now the responsibility of the military and Egyptian liberals. The odds are that they will fail abysmally, and in their failure, the Brotherhood and other Islamists will recapture the street.
Egypt’s experiment with democracy is probably over. Egyptian secularists may win the next election, but many — probably most — Egyptians will see the vote as illegitimate. Islamism grew strong in Egypt in opposition to unlawful power. Islamists may return to violence — the holy-war arguments advanced by the Brotherhood theologian Sayyid Qutb are more readable now. More likely, the brethren will rally their followers in the streets and return to neo-fundamentalism, biding their time until the Egyptian army cracks. Contrary to what the Facebook liberals proudly boast on Tahrir Square, the game is far from over.
Reuel Marc Gerecht is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He served in the CIA’s Clandestine Service from 1985 to 1994, specializing in the Middle East.
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What Morsi’s Fall Means for Hamas
Jonathan Schanzer
11th July 2013 - CNN
When Egypt’s army toppled the Muslim Brotherhood from power last week, it also delivered a punishing blow to Hamas in Gaza.
Fallen President Mohamed Morsi was one of the last remaining friends of Hamas after the group broke from the Iranian “Axis of Resistance” last year. Unable to stand by while the Iran-backed Syrian regime mowed down tens of thousands of fellow Muslims in Syria, Hamas left its Damascus headquarters. As punishment for this defection, Iran cut the purse strings.
Predictably, Hamas turned to Morsi’s Egypt, along with Qatar and Turkey, for patronage. This Muslim Brotherhood triumvirate, for the last year, provided financial assistance to the terrorist organization that conquered the Gaza Strip by force in 2007, while also working assiduously to bring it out of political isolation. These three countries represented a tripod upon which Hamas, a group that is heavily dependent upon foreign assistance to survive, was tenuously balanced.
After Morsi’s ejection last week, Gaza-based leader Ismail Haniyeh stated that he was “not afraid.” If he isn’t, he should be. Now, Hamas has only two patrons left, and both are Western allies that could be tempted to throw Hamas under the bus for greater financial or political incentives. Meanwhile, the Egyptian Army has stepped up efforts to block Hamas’ financial lifeline, the underground smuggling tunnels connecting Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula to Gaza, while the Rafah Border crossing – the only overland exit for the Hamas-controlled territory – has remained largely closed since Morsi’s dramatic demise.
Admittedly, everything wasn’t rosy between Hamas and Egypt during Morsi’s short stint in office either. Hamas has taken a beating in the Egyptian press. Most of the criticism stemmed from concern over violence in the Sinai Peninsula carried out by Gaza-based Salafi jihadist groups. Last year, for example, Gaza-based fighters attacked an Egyptian military outpost near Rafah and killed 16Egyptian soldiers. There was further concern in Cairo that Hamas members might be sneaking in via the tunnels to carry out operations in Egypt. Egypt’s military subsequently closed down dozens of smuggling tunnels, while also interdicting weapons transfers to the Palestinian territory, including short-range rockets and antitank missiles.
Yet all the while, Morsi continued to provide political support to Hamas, hosting at least one senior Hamas figure – Mousa Abu Marzouk – on Egyptian soil. Egypt hosted Hamas’s internal elections earlier this year. It was widely believed that Muslim Brotherhood financiers found ways to bankroll their brothers in Gaza under the table, so as to not upset Egypt’s patrons in the U.S. Congress.
As one Israeli official put it, Egypt was Hamas’s “back office.” The Brotherhood played a particularly crucial role in ensuring the bulk-cash smuggling that has kept Gaza’s economy running.
In other words, under Morsi, the Egyptian government was at odds with itself. Conspiratorial minds might even link the Hamas issue to last week’s toppling, but the country’s Gaza policy was not even a peripheral reason for the military’s intervention.
For Hamas now, the problem is less about the Egyptian army’s wrath or the rapid unraveling of Morsi, and more about the overall beating that the Muslim Brotherhood brand just took. In Egypt, there is no easy way forward. The movement can either swallow its defeat and retreat to its former role of Islamic opposition, or launch an “intifada” against the state. These are tough choices for the “mother ship” of the Muslim Brotherhood, which sets the tone for the other regional movements, including Hamas.
Hamas’ adversaries understand this. Israel’s public security minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch recently suggested that the Islamist faction was weaker. Palestine Liberation Organization official Yasser Abed Rabbo also called upon Hamas to rethink its position in the region. “The victory of the revolution in Egypt and the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood warrants [such] reflection,” he told Palestinian state radio, adding, “Hamas must realize that the Brotherhood can no longer protect it."
The PLO, of course, lacks the means to topple Hamas, and the Israelis are not likely to strike at Hamas given the multitude of other military threats on their plate (Iran nukes and Syrian WMD are chief among them).
For the moment, then, Hamas is probably safe. It still appears to have the backing of Qatar and Turkey. Nevertheless, the divorce from Iran and Syria, followed by the collapse of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, give the impression that Hamas has buckled at the knees. Whether it is allowed to stand again may depend upon the new junta in Cairo.
Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, is vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
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