IP addresses are NOT logged in this forum so there's no point asking. Please note that this forum is full of homophobes, racists, lunatics, schizophrenics & absolute nut jobs with a smattering of geniuses, Chinese chauvinists, Moderate Muslims and last but not least a couple of "know-it-alls" constantly sprouting their dubious wisdom. If you believe that content generated by unsavory characters might cause you offense PLEASE LEAVE NOW! Sammyboy Admin and Staff are not responsible for your hurt feelings should you choose to read any of the content here. The OTHER forum is HERE so please stop asking.
Egypt Islamists vow new demos after deadly clashes
AFP Updated July 6, 2013, 8:24 pm
CAIRO (AFP) - Islamists vowed further protests on Saturday to demand the military restore Egypt's first democratically elected leader, after a night of ferocious clashes that killed 30 people and injured more than 1,100 nationwide.
"The masses will continue their civilised protests and peaceful sit-ins in Cairo until the military coup is reversed and the legitimate president is restored," a coalition of Islamist groups said in a statement.
Despite the talk of peaceful demonstrations, residents in parts of Cairo reported seeing dozens of bearded Islamists armed with machineguns, machetes and sticks on Friday night before the deadly clashes broke out.
Snipers were spotted on rooftops, and medics told AFP they treated some residents of the normally quiet middle-class neighbourhood of Manial for bullet wounds with a downward trajectory.
The backlash came two days after the army toppled Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, underlining the determination of his Muslim Brotherhood to disrupt the military's plan for a political transition until new elections.
Ahead of Saturday's new round of protests, central Cairo was already tense.
Protesters opposed to Morsi spent the night in Tahrir Square, epicentre of the 2011 revolt that ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak, who coincidentally appeared in court on Saturday over the killing of protesters during that uprising.
A bridge leading up to Cairo University -- where Morsi supporters have been camped out for 10 days -- was littered with rocks and burned out tyres from the confrontations.
The Tamarod movement, which engineered the mass protests against Morsi that culminated in his overthrow, urged its supporters to take to the streets again on Sunday.
Tens of thousands of Morsi's supporters turned out on Friday to protest his ouster in the popularly backed military coup.
Equally large numbers of anti-Morsi protesters also flooded the streets of Cairo and the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, sparking pitched battles between members of the rival camps.
Police meanwhile pressed a round-up of top Islamists, announcing the arrest of Khairat al-Shater, widely seen as the most powerful man behind Morsi in the Muslim Brotherhood movement.
At least 12 people were killed in Alexandria as Morsi's supporters and opponents fought in the streets, the official MENA news agency said.
In Cairo's Tahrir Square, at least two people were killed when Morsi supporters traded fire with his opponents, state television reported.
The clashes subsided when troops separated the protesters using armoured vehicles.
"We are not taking sides. Our mission is to secure the lives of protesters," military spokesman Colonel Ahmed Aly told AFP.
Four protesters were killed outside the Republican Guard headquarters after breaking away from a pro-Morsi demonstration, MENA reported.
In the restive north of the Sinai peninsula, armed Morsi supporters stormed the provincial headquarters in the town of El-Arish after a gunfight and raised the black banner of Al-Qaeda-inspired Islamist militants, an AFP correspondent said.
A spokesman for UN chief Ban Ki-moon quoted him calling for a peaceful end to the crisis. "There is no place for retribution or for the exclusion of any major party or community".
The United States too condemned the clashes and urged all leaders including the army to ensure the bloodletting ended.
"We condemn the violence that has taken place today in Egypt. We call on all Egyptian leaders to condemn the use of force and to prevent further violence among their supporters," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
The Islamists accuse the military of conducting a brazen coup against Morsi, after millions called for his ouster on the June 30 anniversary of his first turbulent year in power.
The supreme guide of Morsi's Brotherhood, Mohammed Badie, vowed on Friday that members of the Islamist movement would throng the streets in their millions until his presidency is restored.
"Millions will remain in the squares until we carry our elected president, Mohamed Morsi, on our shoulders," Badie told supporters massed outside Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, before leading chants of "Military coup!" and "Invalid!"
The armed forces have already sworn in Adly Mansour as interim president, and he issued his first decree on Friday, dissolving the Islamist-led parliament and appointing a new intelligence chief.
Morsi, who has not been seen since Wednesday, had issued a defiant call for supporters to protect his elected "legitimacy", in a recorded speech aired hours after his removal.
The military had said it supported the right to peaceful protest, but warned against violence and acts of civil disobedience.
Army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced Morsi's overthrow on Wednesday night, citing his inability to end a deepening political crisis.
Military police rounded up senior Brotherhood members, although two were later released.
Morsi himself was "preventively detained", a senior officer told AFP.
A judicial source said the prosecution would on Monday begin questioning Brotherhood members, including Morsi, for "insulting the judiciary".
Morsi's rule was marked by accusations that he concentrated power in the hands of the Brotherhood.
An Egyptian flag is pictured on the barrel of a gun on an armoured personnel carrier positioned
outside the state-run television station in Cairo July 6, 2013. REUTERS/Louafi Larbi
Sanitary service workers clean a street a day after clashes between pro- and anti-Mursi protesters in the October 6 area of Cairo July 6, 2013.
REUTERS/Louafi Larbi
Soldiers stand on an armoured personnel carrier positioned outside the state-run television station in Cairo July 6, 2013. Credit: Reuters/Louafi Larbi
By Mike Collett-White and Asma Alsharif
CAIRO | Sat Jul 6, 2013 8:38am EDT
(Reuters) - Egypt counted its dead on Saturday after Islamists enraged by the overthrow of President Mohamed Mursi took to the streets in an explosion of violence against what they denounced as a military coup.
At least 30 people died and more than 1,000 were wounded after Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood movement called "Friday of Rejection" protests across the country and tried to march on the military compound where the ousted president is held.
The most deadly clashes were in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, where 14 people died and 200 were wounded. In central Cairo, pro- and anti-Mursi protesters fought pitched battles late into the night with stones, knives, petrol bombs and clubs as armored personnel carriers rumbled among them.
It took hours to restore calm. The Nile River bridges around the landmark Egyptian Museum where the street fights raged were still covered with the debris of rocks and shattered glass on Saturday morning. Both pro- and anti-Mursi activists remained encamped in different squares in the capital.
The Health Ministry said 30 people were killed throughout Egypt on Friday, and 1,138 injured, state media reported.
State-owned newspapers said the army-backed authorities that took power on Wednesday and suspended the constitution, would announce the appointment of a prime minister on Saturday to run the country during a transition period.
Former U.N. nuclear agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, 71, a leading liberal politician, was seen as the most likely candidate to lead an administration focused on reviving a shattered economy and restoring civil peace and security.
In an interview with Reuters, the country's main leftist leader, Hamdeen Sabahi, endorsed ElBaradei for the tough job, saying the transition should be short to amend the constitution and elect a new president and parliament.
The military has given few details and no timeframe for a new ballot - adding to political uncertainty at a time when many Egyptians fear violence could polarize society even further.
Egypt's first freely elected president was toppled after mass demonstrations against Muslim Brotherhood rule, the latest twist in a tumultuous two years since the fall of Hosni Mubarak in the Arab Spring uprisings that swept the region in 2011.
SINAI VIOLENCE
Five police officers were gunned down in separate incidents in the North Sinai town of El Arish, and while it was not clear whether the attacks were linked to Mursi's ouster, hardline Islamists there have warned they would fight back.
There more attacks on army checkpoints in the lawless Sinai peninsula overnight and gunmen fired on central security building in the town of El-Arish, security sources said.
A new Islamist group announced its formation in the lawless Sinai peninsula adjoining Israel and the Gaza Strip, calling the army's ousting of Mursi a declaration of war on their faith and threatening violence to impose Islamic law.
The group, calling itself Ansar al-Shariah in Egypt, said it would gather arms and start training its members, in a statement posted on an online forum for militants in the country's Sinai region recorded by SITE Monitoring.
The events of the last week have aroused concern among Egypt's allies in the West, including key donors the United States and the European Union, and in Israel, with which Egypt has had a U.S.-backed peace treaty since 1979.
Egyptian newspapers quoted ElBaradei as saying he expected Gulf Arab monarchies that were hostile to the Brotherhood's rule to pile in with financial support for the new authorities.
Only gas-rich Qatar provided substantial funds to Mursi's government with a total of $7 billion in loans and grants. Turkey and Libya also provided smaller loans and deposits.
Mursi's overthrow was greeted with wild scenes of celebration but infuriated supporters who fear a return to the suppression of Islamists they endured under military rule.
It has deepened Egypt's crisis. The Brotherhood has spurned army invitations to join an inclusive transition plan, culminating in fresh elections, saying it will not recognize the "usurper authorities".
RISING TENSIONS
Early on Friday, three protesters were shot dead outside the Republican Guard barracks where deposed Mursi is being held, security sources said.
The army denied responsibility for the shootings. An army spokesman said troops did not open fire on the demonstrators and soldiers used blank rounds and teargas to control the crowd.
It was unclear whether other security forces were present.
Later, tens of thousands of cheering Islamists gathered near a mosque in a Cairo suburb where they were addressed by Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie, free to address them despite reports on Thursday that he had been arrested.
Badie, like some other leaders, pledge that it was worth "our lives" to restore Mursi to the presidency. But Brotherhood officials have also insisted they will not resort to violence.
After dark, running battles broke out in the area between Tahrir Square, scene of the demonstrations that toppled Mubarak, and the state broadcasting headquarters. Reuters journalists saw hundreds of youths from either side skirmish around the highway ramps of a major bridge over the Nile.
The violence will ring alarm bells in the United States. Washington has so far avoided referring to the army's removal of Mursi as a "coup", a word that under U.S. law would require a halt to its $1.5 billion in annual aid.
But many Egyptians see the army as a guarantor of stability at a dangerous time for the world's most populous Arab nation.
"Maybe they will need to issue a curfew. Maybe the trouble will last a few days," said Said Asr, 41, sitting with friends outside a Cairo cafe smoking a cigarette. "But the army is everything in this country. And they are taking control."
(Reporting by Asma Alsharif, Mike Collett-White, Alexander Dziadosz, Maggie Fick, Alastair Macdonald, Sarah McFarlane, Shadia Nasralla, Tom Perry, Yasmine Saleh, Paul Taylor, and Patrick Werr in Cairo, Abdelrahman Youssef in Alexandria, Yursi Mohamed in Ismailia and Michelle Nichols in New York; Writing by Paul Taylor)
