Egypt’s Islamists fight back

Morsi allies: Will reclaim seat of power

A military attack helicopter flies over a street near the presidential palace, in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, July 5, 2013. The top leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has vowed to restore ousted President Mohammed Morsi to office, saying Egyptians will not accept "military rule" for another day. General Guide Mohammed Badie, a revered figure among the Brotherhood's followers, spoke Friday before a crowd of tens of thousands of Morsi supporters in Cairo. A military helicopter circled low overhead. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A military attack helicopter flies over a street near the presidential palace, in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, July 5, 2013. The top leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has vowed to restore ousted President Mohammed Morsi to office, saying Egyptians will not accept "military rule" for another day. General Guide Mohammed Badie, a revered figure among the Brotherhood's followers, spoke Friday before a crowd of tens of thousands of Morsi supporters in Cairo. A military helicopter circled low overhead. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

CAIRO - Enraged Islamists pushed back against the toppling of President Mohammed Morsi, as tens of thousands of his supporters marched Friday in Cairo to demand his reinstatement and attacked his opponents. Nighttime clashes raged with stone-throwing, firecrackers and gunfire, and military armored vehicles raced across a Nile River bridge in a counter-

assault on Morsi’s supporters.

Mayhem nationwide left at least 30 people dead and 210 wounded as Morsi supporters stormed government buildings, vowing to reverse the military’s removal of the country’s first freely elected president. Among the dead were four killed when troops opened fire on a peaceful march by Islamists on the Republican Guard headquarters.

In a dramatic appearance - his first since Morsi’s ouster - the supreme leader of the Muslim Broth-erhood defiantly vowed the president would return. “God make Morsi victorious and bring him back to the palace,” Mohammed Badie proclaimed from a stage before a crowd of cheering supporters at a Cairo mosque. “We are his soldiers. We defend him with our lives.”

The pro-Morsi crowds reflected the resiliency of the Muslim Brotherhood to organize mass rallies in the aftermath of the military intervention that deposed Morsi.

“Where’s Morsi?” they screamed. Others denounced Egypt’s defense minister, Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who ordered Morsi removed from power Wednesday night. “Traitor, traitor, traitor! Sissi is a traitor!” they cried.

The Muslim Brotherhood called the protests the “Friday of Rejection” and insisted that Morsi be reinstated as the rightful head of state.

“We will bring him back bearing him on our necks, sacrifice our souls for him,” said Badie, stirring the crowd into impassioned anger. “We will bring back the rights of the Egyptian people who were wronged by this disgraceful conspiracy.”

Badie also addressed the military, saying it was a matter of honor for it to abide by its pledge of loyalty to the president, in what appeared to be an attempt to pull it away from its leadership that removed Morsi. “Your leader is Morsi. … Return to the people of Egypt,” he said. “Your bullets are not to be fired on your sons and your own people.”

Hours later, Badie’s deputy, Khairat el-Shater, considered the most powerful figure in the organization, was arrested in a Cairo apartment along with his brother on allegations of inciting violence, Interior Ministry spokesman Hani Abdel-Latif said.

The circumstances of Badie’s appearance were a mystery, however. Security officials had said he was taken into custody Wednesday night from a villa on the Mediterranean coast and flown to Cairo, part of a sweep that netted at least five other senior Brotherhood figures and put about 200 more on wanted lists.

There was no immediate explanation by security officials for the circumstances of his detention and release.

Authorities also announced the release of Saad Katatni, head of the Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, as well as one of Badie’s deputies, Rashad Bayoumi, pending further investigation.

After nightfall, moments after Badie’s speech, a crowd of Islamists surged across 6th October Bridge over the Nile toward Tahrir Square, where a throng of Morsi’s opponents had been massed all day. Battles broke out there near the neighboring state TV building with gunfire and stone throwing and a burning car barricade at an exit ramp.

“They are firing at us, sons of dogs, where is the army,” one Morsi opponent shouted, as another was taken to medics with his jeans soaked in blood from wounds in his legs. Army troops deployed on another Nile bridge leading into Tahrir, sealing it off with barbed wire and armored vehicles.

Later at least seven armored personnel carriers moved across the bridge, chasing away the Morsi supporters. Young civilians jumped onto the roofs of the vehicles, shouting insults at the Islamists and chanting, “The people and army are one hand.”

In cities across the country, clashes broke out as Morsi supporters tried to storm government buildings or military facilities, battling police or Morsi opponents.

The day’s turmoil began in the afternoon when army troops opened fire as hundreds of Morsi supporters marched on the Republican Guard building in Cairo, where Morsi was staying at the time of his ouster before being taken into military custody at an unknown location.

The crowd approached a barbed-wire barrier where troops were standing guard around the building. When one person hung a sign of Morsi on the barrier, the troops tore it down and told the crowd to stay back. A protester put up a second sign, and the soldiers opened fire, according to an Associated Press photographer.

A dead protester was seen with a gaping, bleeding wound in the back of his head, while others fell bloodied and wounded. Three others were reported killed. Witnesses told AP Television News at the scene that men in plainclothes fired the lethal shots.

Protesters pelted the line of troops with stones, and the soldiers responded with volleys of tear gas. Many of those injured had the pockmark wounds typical of birdshot. The BBC’s Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, was hit in the head with birdshot as he covered the clashes. “Am fine,” he reported in a tweet.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague said he was “very concerned” by the reports of violence. In a Twitter message, he wrote: “Hope calm heads will prevail, vital to avoid escalation.”

The first major Islamic militant attack came before dawn Friday in the Sinai Peninsula, killing at least one soldier. Masked assailants with rockets, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft guns attacked the airport in the northern Sinai city of el-Arish, where military aircraft are housed, as well as a security-forces camp in Rafah on the border with Gaza and five other military and police posts, sparking nearly four hours of clashes.

One of the military’s top commanders, Gen. Ahmed Wasfi, arrived at el-Arish on Friday to lead operations there as the army declared a “war on terrorism” in Sinai. A crowd of Morsi supporters tried to storm the governor’s office in the city but were dispersed by security forces.

The night of Morsi’s ouster, jihadi groups held a rally in el-Arish attended by hundreds vowing to fight. “War council, war council,” a speaker shouted, according to online video of the rally. “No peacefulness after today.”

Islamic militants hold a powerful sway in the lawless and chaotic northern Sinai.They are heavily armed with weapons smuggled from Libya and have links with militants in the neighboring Gaza Strip, run by Hamas. After the attack, Egypt indefinitely closed its border crossing into Gaza, sending 200 Palestinians back into the territory, said Gen. Sami Metwali, director of Rafah passage.

At the Rabia al-Adawiya rally earlier in the day, the crowd filled much of a broad boulevard, vowing to remain in place until Morsi is restored. The protesters railed against what they called the return of the regime of autocrat Hosni Mubarak, ousted in early 2011.

“The old regime has come back … worse than before,” said Ismail Abdel-Mohsen, an 18-year old student among the crowds outside the Rabia al-Adawiya Mosque. He dismissed the new interim head of state sworn in a day earlier, senior judge Adly Mansour, as “the military puppet.”

“After sunset, President Morsi will be back in the palace,” they chanted. “The people want God’s law. Islamic, Islamic, whether the army likes it or not.”

In southern Egypt, Islamists attacked the main church in the city of Qena on Friday. In the town of Dabaiya near the city of Luxor, a mob torched houses of Christians, sending dozens of Christians seeking shelter in a police station. Clashes broke out Friday in at least two cities in the Nile Delta between pro- and anti-Morsi demonstrators.

The first steps for creating a post-Morsi government were taken Thursday, when Mansour, the 67-year-old chief justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court, was sworn in by fellow judges as interim president. A Cabinet of technocrats is to be formed to run the country for an interim period until new elections can be held - though officials have not said how long that will be. In the meantime, the Islamist-written constitution has been suspended.

On Friday, Mansour dissolved the country’s interim parliament - the upper house of the legislature, which was overwhelmingly dominated by Islamists and Morsi allies. The Shura Council, which normally does not legislate, held legislative powers under Morsi’s presidency because the lower house had been dissolved.

Mansour also named the head of General Intelligence, Rafaat Shehata, as his security adviser.

In Europe, the top human-rights official at the United Nations, Navi Pillay, expressed concern Friday at the reported detention of Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Egypt and called on military authorities there to make clear the basis on which they are being held or release them.

“There should be no more violence, no arbitrary detention, no illegal acts of retribution,” Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement released at the commission’s headquarters in Geneva. She urged the military and all political parties “to deter and punish any acts of vengeance.”

“We don’t really know the details and what the basis of these detentions is,” said Rupert Colville, a spokesman for Pillay, in a reference to thefate of Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders. “If you detain or arrest someone, there needs to be, according to the law, a very good reason to do so. There needs to be due process.”

Meanwhile, the African Union on Friday suspended Egypt from membership in the continental body after the ouster of Morsi.

African Union Commission head Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said at a news conference in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, that the removal of Morsi falls under the African Union doctrine on unconstitutional changes of government.

Officials decided Friday to block Egypt from all activities of the continental body until constitutional order is restored in the nation, she said. Information for this article was contributed by Lee Keath, Maggie Michael, Sarah El Deeb,Tony G. Gabriel and Kirubel Tadesse of The Associated Press; and by Ben Hubbard, David D. Kirkpatrick, Rick Gladstone, Mayy El Sheikh and Kareem Fahi of The New York Times.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/06/2013

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