The current clashes in Egypt may lead to the reintroduction of emergency rules. The Muslim Brotherhood might be tempted to use these rules not only to against the protests from the left but also to act against its Salafi competition to the right. That again may well lead to an armed Jihadist insurgency which the Egyptian state would have trouble to suppress.
On January 25 the second anniversary of the begin of the unfinished Egyptian revolution was celebrated with renewed clashes at Cairo's Tahrir square. Various groups were involved with all of them seemingly opposed to the ruling Muslim Brotherhood. A "black block" appeared, a previously unknown phenomenon in Egypt. It is not known who is behind these people, who their leaders are and what the block's purpose is supposed to be. Usually such blocks, by attacking state organs, manage to delegitimatize any civil demonstration they join.
Another block involved in the protest were the rather radical supporters, the Ultras, of Cairo's soccer club al-Ahly. These never want to miss a fight with supporters of a competing club or the police.
Likely to stave off further fights with the al-Ahly supporters a court in Cairo yesterday announced a ruling in the case of a riot and panic in the Port Said football stadium on February 1 2012. In that riot followers of the Port Said team attacked players and fans of the al-Ahly team. The police did not intervene. A panic occurred and many al-Ahly fans got killed while trying to leave the locked stands. A total of 79 people died. CNN reported at that time:
Police conscripts then stood by as rival fans attacked each other with rocks and chairs. "The police did nothing to stop it," said Amr Khamis, an Al-Ahly supporter, at the train station in Cairo after returning from the match.
"Officers refused to open the gates of the stadium, so we could not escape and had to face thousands of Al-Masry hooligans attacking with rocks, knives, swords and anything else you can imagine."
The authorities at those riots were either completely incompetent or had willingly let it happen.
Yesterday the court announced the death penalty for 21 of the accused. All of these were Port Said soccer fans. Not one of the security officers or Cairo fans involved was found guilty. While the Cairo fans celebrated the judgement, Port Said fans immediately took to the streets and tried to storm the prison which holds the convicts.
Shots were fired from the security forces as well as by those attacking the prison. Thirty-three people, including two police, were killed. Later the military was deployed. As today's mass funeral procession for those killed yesterday passed along an army and police beach club shots were fired at the procession by unknown persons. New violence ensued and the police club was burned down. At least seven people were killed and hundreds were injured. In Port Said a cycle of demonstrates killed, mass funeral, mourners killed, seems to have started. Such a cycle had a great role in the Iranian revolution against the Shah. Violence in Cairo also continued today.
The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood demands that president Mursi reintroduces emergency laws that had been abandoned after the fall of president Mubarak. This would further alienate those who are already critical of the Mursi government. It would be a "four legs good two legs better" moment. The saying "the system did not change, it just grew a beard" would have become true.
The more secular opposition and the rioting seems to be without any plan. The hapless opposition National Salvation Front announced that it would not take part in the next parliament elections and issues demands that Mursi will certainly not fulfill. It has little influence over the rioters. Meanwhile the silent majority is abstaining from protests and enduring more economic pain.
While the current protests and the cycle of violence make it difficult for Mursi to rule they are in effect more of an economic problem than a real threat to the state.
The danger for Mursi is not from the secular and the left but to his right. The Salafis will certainly try to use the situation for their gain. The brother of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mohamed al-Zawahri, is leading the Salafist Jihadist group in Egypt. In a recent interview he explained his position:
Thankfully the situation is improving in terms of lifting the oppression from the Muslims and in terms of our freedoms and this includes promoting what we view as being the True Religion. However we are still very far from the primary objective of implementing Islamic Sharia law.
Sharia law would, according to him, solve the partisanship issues, lift Egypt's economic problems, better the security situation and heal tooth pain.
We are of the view that democracy contravenes the True Religion of Islam, as this places sovereignty outside of God’s hands, and so we reject democracy and all its mechanisms and tools.
Mohamed al-Zawahri played a role in the attack on the U.S. embassy in Cairo on September 11. The storming of the embassy in Cario was, in my view, a diversion to help the well planned attack on the U.S. "consulate" and CIA station in Benghazi in Libya. This operation interrupted the CIA organized weapon flow from Gaddhafi's arsenals via Turkey to the more secular insurgents in Syria. The weapon flow to the Salafi insurgents in Syria was not interrupted and they are since the predominant force in the Syrian insurgency.
Many of Egypt's Salafist live in the Sinai. Many Libyan weapons were also reported to have been smuggled there. Benghazi is only a 200 miles desert ride away from Egypt's western border. It is a hotbed of Salafist Jihadis and not under government control. Fearing imminent attacks the British, German and Italian governments yesterday urged their citizens to leave the city.
For the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt the Salafists are the most rival political force and the biggest political danger. In the last parliament election the Muslim brotherhood received some 38% of the vote and the Islamist Bloc, led by Salafists, received 28%. Since he started ruling president Mursi and his Muslim Brotherhood did not have much success. The economic situation further deteriorated with especially the important tourist business still being in tatters. The security situation is still bad.
It is quite possible that, with the secular opposition abstaining, the vote share for the Salafist parties in the upcoming parliament elections may overtake the one for the Muslim Brotherhood.
If Mursi follows the demand for reintroduction of the emergency laws it would give him the tools to suppress the Salafi parties and votes. The urge to do so might be overwhelming.
But any suppression of the Salafis increases the risk of a a real revolt. Armed and supported by their friends in Benghazi a Salafist insurgency in Egypt might have a real chance. Unlike Qatar, Saudi Arabia, as well as Kuwait and the UAE, see the Muslim Brotherhood as a danger to their countries. They may well be inclined to support an armed revolution from the right against Mursi's rule.
Even for the Egyptian army such an insurgency, which would take place in the cities, would be very difficult to suppress. Will the military see the danger and again take over?
