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Morsi Marches On: Veteran of Luxor Massacre Appointed to Governorship

Dave Emory’s entire life­time of work is avail­able on a flash dri­ve that can be obtained here. (The flash dri­ve includes the anti-fas­cist books avail­able on this site.)

COMMENT: One of the more grotesque aspects of this decades-long under­tak­ing has been watch­ing peo­ple hail the advance of fas­cism as some­thing “desir­able” and/or “demo­c­ra­t­ic.” 

Even as the gullible raise their voic­es in sup­port of Baby Face Snow­den (the career spook whose “leak­ing” of doc­u­ments is almost cer­tain­ly part of an intel­li­gence-com­mu­ni­ty desta­bi­liza­tion of Oba­ma), we are pre­sent­ed with ongo­ing evi­dence of just how mis­placed such acclaim can be.

Less than two years after the “Arab Spring” (“Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Spring” we call it) was hailed as a blos­som­ing of democ­ra­cy in the Arab world, it is prov­ing to be the instal­la­tion of Islam­ic fas­cism (or “cor­po­ratism” as Mus­soli­ni called his sys­tem) that we said it would be.

(Those not famil­iar with the line of analy­sis we pre­sent­ed should check out FTR #‘s 732 through 739, as well as 724, 725, 745 about Wik­iLeaks. The so-called Arab Spring was the out­growth of a covert oper­a­tion begun dur­ing Bush’s sec­ond term and real­ized by the GOP/Underground Reich fac­tion of the U.S. intel­li­gence sys­tem.)

Now, Mor­si’s Islam­ic fas­cist regime has appoint­ed a vet­er­an of the Al Gamaa al-Islamiya group to be a region­al gov­er­nor. That orga­ni­za­tion per­pe­trat­ed the Lux­or mas­sacre.

In FTR #‘s 457, 455, 402, we dis­cussed the Lux­or mas­sacre, the “Gamaa’s” links to Al-Qae­da, the bin Laden fam­i­ly and Sau­di mon­ey men.

“Egyp­t’s Mor­si Tight­ens Islamist Grip with Gov­er­nor Appoint­ments” [Reuters]; townhall.com; 6/16/2013.

EXCERPT: Egypt­ian Pres­i­dent Mohamed Mur­si named a mem­ber of an Islamist group remem­bered for a bloody attack on West­ern tourists in the ancient city of Lux­or over a decade ago as gov­er­nor of that province on Sun­day.

It was one of 17 guber­na­to­r­i­al appoint­ments that put Islamist allies in key posi­tions across the coun­try as Mur­si braces for protests on the first anniver­sary of his inau­gu­ra­tion at the end of the month.

Sev­en of the new gov­er­nors list­ed by the state news agency are mem­bers of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood’s Free­dom and Jus­tice Par­ty, which backed Mur­si in elec­tions that fol­lowed the over­throw of Hos­ni Mubarak in 2011, pro­pelling him to pow­er last year.

The new­ly appoint­ed Lux­or gov­er­nor, Adel Mohamed al-Khay­at, is a mem­ber of the Build­ing and Devel­op­ment par­ty. The par­ty was estab­lished by Al Gamaa al-Islamiya, an Islamist group that was involved in attacks in Lux­or that killed around 60 tourists in the late 90s, but lat­er renounced vio­lence. . . .

Discussion

8 comments for “Morsi Marches On: Veteran of Luxor Massacre Appointed to Governorship”

  1. http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/06/18/Mursi-threatened-to-burn-Egypt-if-Elbaradei-became-PM.html

    Report: Mur­si threat­ened to ‘burn Egypt’ if Elba­radei became PM
    Tues­day, 18 June 2013

    Al Ara­biya

    Lead­ing Egypt­ian oppo­si­tion fig­ure Mohammed Elba­radei said on Tues­day that Pres­i­dent Mohammed Mur­si had threat­ened to “burn the coun­try” if he became prime min­is­ter.

    Elba­radei, cit­ing for­mer mil­i­tary leader Field Mar­shal Hus­sein Tanta­wi as the source of his infor­ma­tion, added that the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood had “vetoed” the pos­si­bil­i­ty of him ever becom­ing a prime min­is­ter.

    In 2011, Egyp­t’s then rul­ing mil­i­tary coun­cil was con­sid­er­ing nam­ing for­mer Inter­na­tion­al Atom­ic Ener­gy Agency Chief ElBa­radei as Cairo’s new prime min­is­ter.

    It is unclear when Mur­si had alleged­ly threat­ened against ElBa­radei’s appoint­ment as PM.

    “It’s been a year since Mur­si became pres­i­dent, the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood has failed on a polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and secu­ri­ty fronts,” Elbaradie told Lon­don-based al-Hay­at news­pa­per.

    “The time has come for Mur­si to real­ize that his fail­ure will lead to an ear­ly pres­i­den­tial elec­tion,” he said, adding that he won’t run for the next elec­tions.

    In the inter­view, Elba­radei accused the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood of hijack­ing the Jan. 25 rev­o­lu­tion, say­ing “there is intense anger among young peo­ple who sparked the rev­o­lu­tion because they feel that the rev­o­lu­tion has been stolen away from them, and that their dream was stolen as well, it was a dream of the future.”

    “Young peo­ple rep­re­sent 60 per­cent of the Egypt­ian soci­ety,” he added.

    The major­i­ty of the Egypt­ian peo­ple revolt­ed for the pro­vi­sion of basic needs, includ­ing eco­nom­ic hard­ships, but inter­mit­tent protests have con­tin­ued ever since over what has been per­ceived to be a lack of change in the coun­try.

    Posted by Vanfield | June 18, 2013, 10:18 am
  2. I feel like a com­plete sap for sup­port­ing the upris­ing in Libya, at the time I gen­uine­ly thought it was a pop­u­lar revolt against a tyrant. The main­stream press played peo­ple like a vio­lin, straight out of ‘wag the dog’.

    Posted by Chris | June 18, 2013, 11:49 am
  3. http://www.majalla.com/eng/2013/06/article55242686

    Post­ed by : Polit­i­cal Edi­tor: The Majal­la
    on : Mon­day, 24 Jun, 2013

    Egypt­ian army gives politi­cians a new dead­line

    Egypt­ian army threat­ens inter­ven­tion unless polit­i­cal impasse is resolved before June 30 anti-Mur­si demon­stra­tions.

    CAIRO, Asharq Al-Awsat—The com­man­der of the Egypt­ian armed forces, Gen­er­al Abdel-Fat­tah El-Sis­si, called on polit­i­cal par­ties to reach a polit­i­cal set­tle­ment before the planned oppo­si­tion demon­stra­tions on Sun­day, June 30, and warned that the army would not stay on the side­lines if there was a risk of chaos in the coun­try.

    Gen­er­al Sis­si said the army’s main respon­si­bil­i­ty to the nation made it imper­a­tive for the army to inter­vene if there was a threat that would cause the coun­try to “slip into dark­ness.”

    Sis­si point­ed out that “the armed forces had avoid­ed being drawn into the polit­i­cal are­na, but that its nation­al, his­toric and moral respon­si­bil­i­ty to the peo­ple makes it imper­a­tive that it inter­venes to stop Egypt slip­ping into a dark tun­nel of con­flict, inter­nal fight­ing, exchang­ing accu­sa­tions of trea­son and crim­i­nal­i­ty, sec­tar­i­an sedi­tion, and the col­lapse of insti­tu­tions.”

    He warned against the dan­gers of divi­sion with­in the polit­i­cal are­na fol­low­ing last Friday’s demon­stra­tions in sup­port of Pres­i­dent Mur­si.

    He said: “It is impor­tant to have har­mo­ny among all par­ties, and those who think this sit­u­a­tion is good for the coun­try are mis­tak­en. It harms the coun­try and threat­ens Egypt­ian nation­al secu­ri­ty.”

    The armed forces have kept a dis­tance from pol­i­tics since Sis­si took com­mand in August last year. He told a gath­er­ing of his offi­cers yes­ter­day: “They who think that we are safe from the dan­gers threat­en­ing our coun­try are mis­tak­en, and we will not watch in silence as the coun­try slides into an uncon­trol­lable con­flict.”

    The armed forces gov­erned Egypt in the peri­od after the fall of for­mer Pres­i­dent Hos­ni Mubarak in Feb­ru­ary 2011 and the arrival of Mohamed Mur­si in June 2012.

    Sis­si, whose state­ment is like­ly to increase spec­u­la­tion that the Egypt­ian army is re-enter­ing the polit­i­cal are­na, added: “the will of the Egypt­ian peo­ple is what gov­erns [the army], and we embrace it with hon­or and integri­ty. We are total­ly respon­si­ble for its pro­tec­tion and will not allow any­one to harm the will of the peo­ple.”

    Sis­si con­tin­ued: “It is not brave to stand aside and watch our Egypt­ian peo­ple being threat­ened and intim­i­dat­ed; it is bet­ter to die than allow any Egypt­ian to be harmed in the pres­ence of their army.” This com­ment was inter­pret­ed as a response to threats made by Islamists last Fri­day to try to pre­vent large num­bers of peo­ple from join­ing the June 30 anti-Mur­si demon­stra­tions.

    He urged peo­ple to stop attack­ing the armed forces, warn­ing that the army will not stay silent to these attacks. He con­clud­ed his state­ment by say­ing “the armed forces call on every­one to find a prin­ci­ple of under­stand­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and gen­uine rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, to pro­tect Egypt and its peo­ple. We have a week in which a lot can be achieved.”

    Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Guid­ance Bureau mem­ber, Mah­moud Gha­zlan told Asharq Al-Awsat that “despite the embar­rass­ment this state­ment caus­es to the pres­i­den­cy, because it rep­re­sents an intru­sion by the army in pol­i­tics, the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood does not have a prob­lem in deal­ing pos­i­tive­ly with it.”

    Gha­zlan added that “the oppo­si­tion could have spared the coun­try this embar­rass­ment by respond­ing to our repeat­ed calls for rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, a call made also by the pres­i­den­cy.”

    He added that the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and its allies had shown restraint in last Friday’s demon­stra­tion in sup­port of Mur­si, in which they avoid­ed vio­lence, adding that it was the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood who adhered to demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues, not oth­ers.

    Meanwhile,Asharq Al-Awsat has learnt that lead­ing mem­bers of the oppo­si­tion Sal­va­tion Front have called for an urgent meet­ing to dis­cuss the state­ment. They told Asharq Al-Awsat that any rec­on­cil­i­a­tion talks must be pre­ced­ed by a call from Pres­i­dent Mur­si for ear­ly pres­i­den­tial elec­tions.

    By Mohamed Has­san Sha­ban

    Posted by Vanfield | June 24, 2013, 9:08 am
  4. Well that did­n’t go well:

    Con­tro­ver­sial Egypt Islamist quits as Lux­or gov­er­nor

    CAIRO, June 23 | Sun Jun 23, 2013 7:03am EDT

    (Reuters) — The new gov­er­nor of Egyp­t’s Lux­or province, con­tro­ver­sial­ly appoint­ed last week despite belong­ing to a hard­line Islamist group that killed 58 tourists there in 1997, announced his res­ig­na­tion on Sun­day.

    “We will not accept that one drop of blood be spilt because of a posi­tion that I did not per­son­al­ly aspire to at any time,” Adel Mohamed al-Khay­at said in a news con­fer­ence, say­ing the deci­sion had been made after con­sul­ta­tions with his par­ty.

    A mem­ber of al-Gamaa al-Islamiya, which mount­ed cam­paigns against Egyp­t’s mil­i­tary rulers and tourist indus­try at var­i­ous times from the 1970s to 1990s, al-Khay­at was appoint­ed a week ago by Pres­i­dent Mohamed Mur­si in a move that showed the grow­ing impor­tance of al-Gamaa as an ally of Mur­si’s Mus­lim Broth­er­hood.

    Khay­at had denied any per­son­al role in mil­i­tant attacks, hav­ing worked as a civ­il ser­vant after a brief asso­ci­a­tion with al-Gamaa as a stu­dent.

    But his appoint­ment prompt­ed uproar in Lux­or, in the south­ern heart­lands of al-Gamaa sup­port. Work­ers in the tourist indus­try around its pharaon­ic tem­ples feared the new gov­er­nor could put off vis­i­tors at a time when busi­ness is already poor due to con­tin­ued unrest fol­low­ing the 2011 rev­o­lu­tion.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | June 27, 2013, 8:10 pm
  5. And here come the vig­i­lantes:

    Egypt­ian cler­ics warn of ‘civ­il war’ ahead of mass protests

    By Char­lene Gubash and Alas­tair Jamieson, NBC News, 6/28/2013

    Egypt risks slid­ing into civ­il war, the country’s lead­ing reli­gious author­i­ty warned Fri­day, as the nation braced itself for mass nation­wide protests.

    Orga­niz­ers of “June 30” demon­stra­tions — which mark one year since Islamist Pres­i­dent Mohammed Mor­si’s elec­tion — claim they have the back­ing of an esti­mat­ed 15 mil­lion Egyp­tians who want him to resign.

    “Only God knows what will hap­pen [on Sun­day],” said Gamal Abdul Aziz, a pro-Mor­si car mechan­ic in Madba’a, a blue-col­lar dis­trict in Cairo.

    Build­ing on dis­con­tent about a range of social and eco­nom­ic issues, Morsi’s oppo­nents hope to force ear­ly pres­i­den­tial elec­tions.

    His sup­port­ers, mean­while, have promised they will also take to the streets to defend the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood-backed gov­ern­ment.

    “Vig­i­lance is required to ensure we do not slide into civ­il war,” cler­ics of the Al-Azhar insti­tute said in a state­ment broad­ly sup­port­ive of Mor­si, Reuters report­ed.

    It blamed “crim­i­nal gangs” who besieged mosques for street vio­lence which the Broth­er­hood said has killed five of its sup­port­ers in a week.

    There were omi­nous signs on Fri­day. A Health Min­istry source told Reuters that at least 36 peo­ple were wound­ed when hun­dreds scuf­fled out­side a local office of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood.

    A Reuters reporter saw about a dozen men break off from an anti-Mor­si march on the seafront to throw rocks at the build­ing’s guards. They respond­ed and bricks and bot­tles flew. Gun­shots were also heard.

    ...

    Morsi’s sup­port­ers claim the demon­stra­tion– orga­nized by an oppo­si­tion umbrel­la group named “Tamar­od,” mean­ing “Rebel” – is set­ting the stage for a repeat of the 2011 Arab Spring rev­o­lu­tion.

    Mah­moud Badr, a 28-year-old jour­nal­ist and founder of the Tamar­od move­ment, dis­missed a tele­vised speech by Mor­si on Wednes­day night in which the pres­i­dent appealed for calm.

    “Our demand was ear­ly pres­i­den­tial elec­tions and since that was not addressed any­where in the speech then our response will be on the streets on [Sun­day],” he told the Eng­lish-lan­guage Egypt Inde­pen­dent news site.

    The U.S. Embassy announced Tues­day it would be clos­ing its doors for the day of the demon­stra­tions, but added that “poten­tial­ly vio­lent protest activ­i­ty may occur before June 30,” and urged U.S. cit­i­zens to “main­tain a low pro­file” from Fri­day onwards.

    Under­scor­ing fears of vio­lence, defend­ers of Mor­si on Tues­day revealed plans to form vig­i­lante groups to pro­tect pub­lic build­ings from oppo­si­tion demon­stra­tions, the Egypt Inde­pen­dent report­ed, quot­ing Safwat Abdel Ghany, a mem­ber of Islam­ic umbrel­la orga­ni­za­tion Jama’a al-Islamiya.

    “If chaos sweeps across the coun­try, Islamist groups will secure state insti­tu­tions and vital facil­i­ties against rob­bery by thugs and advo­cates of vio­lence,” he was quot­ed as say­ing.

    Mem­bers of Tamar­od were so con­fi­dent that they would force Mor­si from pow­er that the orga­ni­za­tion set out a con­sti­tu­tion­al “road map” that it said would take Egypt for­ward with­out a pres­i­dent until new elec­tions.

    Eric Trager, fel­low at the Wash­ing­ton Insti­tute think tank, said this week that bat­tle lines were drawn between “an enraged oppo­si­tion” and “an utter­ly inca­pable, con­fronta­tion­al rul­ing par­ty that now counts some of Egyp­t’s most vio­lent polit­i­cal ele­ments as its core sup­port­ers.”

    “Ris­ing food prices, hours-long fuel lines, and mul­ti­ple-times-dai­ly elec­tric­i­ty cuts — all wors­en­ing amidst a typ­i­cal­ly scorch­ing Egypt­ian sum­mer — have set many Egyp­tians on edge, with clash­es between Broth­er­hood and anti-Broth­er­hood activists now a com­mon fea­ture of Egypt­ian polit­i­cal life,” he said.

    “What­ev­er hap­pens on [Sun­day], it can’t end well,” he added.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | June 28, 2013, 8:47 am
  6. Not good:

    Egypt Broth­er­hood leader calls for ‘mar­tyr­dom’
    Pub­lished July 02, 2013
    AFP

    CAIRO (AFP) – A top Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leader urged Egyp­tians to stand ready to sac­ri­fice their lives to pre­vent a coup, after the army gave Islamist Pres­i­dent Mohamed Mor­si and his oppo­nents until Wednes­day to resolve their dif­fer­ences or face inter­ven­tion.

    “Seek­ing mar­tyr­dom to pre­vent this coup is what we can offer to the pre­vi­ous mar­tyrs of the rev­o­lu­tion,” Mohamed al-Belt­agui said in a state­ment on Tues­day.

    He was refer­ring to the more than 800 peo­ple killed dur­ing the 2011 upris­ing that oust­ed vet­er­an strong­man Hos­ni Mubarak.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | July 2, 2013, 9:03 am
  7. The rats are jump­ing ship. Just not the top rat:

    BBC
    Egyp­t’s Mohammed Mor­si vows to stay in office
    2 July 2013 Last updat­ed at 20:33 ET

    Egyp­t’s pres­i­dent has vowed to defend the legit­i­ma­cy of his office with his life, amid con­tin­u­ing mass protests and more deaths in the cap­i­tal, Cairo.

    In a late-night tele­vised appeal for calm, Mohammed Mor­si reject­ed an army ulti­ma­tum that the coun­try’s cri­sis be resolved by Wednes­day.

    Mr Mor­si admit­ted he had made mis­takes but said he would not be dic­tat­ed to and urged protests to remain peace­ful.

    The army ear­li­er leaked details of a draft “roadmap” for Egyp­t’s future.

    Details of the plan leaked to the BBC out­lined new pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, the sus­pen­sion of the new con­sti­tu­tion and the dis­so­lu­tion of par­lia­ment.

    Clash­es in Cairo between oppo­nents and sup­port­ers of the Islamist pres­i­dent killed at least sev­en peo­ple on Tues­day, the health min­istry said.

    The army warned on Mon­day that it would step in unless a solu­tion was found, giv­ing Mr Mor­si 48 hours to find agree­ment with the oppo­si­tion.

    That ulti­ma­tum expires around 16:30 (15:30 BST) on Wednes­day.

    Clash­es spread­ing

    In a 45-minute address on state tele­vi­sion, Mr Mor­si said he respect­ed the right to peace­ful protest, but said respect for the con­sti­tu­tion­al order was the “only guar­an­tee against fur­ther blood­shed”.

    “When there’s vio­lence and thug­gery I must act,” he said.

    Mr Mor­si said he would “give my life” to defend con­sti­tu­tion­al legit­i­ma­cy,

    He blamed the unrest on cor­rup­tion and rem­nants of the oust­ed regime of Hos­ni Mubarak, and called for pro­test­ers to respect the rule of law.

    Mr Mor­si urged the estab­lish­ment of a com­mit­tee of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion as well as a char­ter of ethics for the media, and said he was pre­pared to meet all groups and indi­vid­u­als as part of a nation­al dia­logue process.

    But Mohammed Abde­laz­iz, a leader of the Tamar­od (Rebel) oppo­si­tion cam­paign, told Agence France-Presse: “This is a pres­i­dent threat­en­ing his own peo­ple. We don’t con­sid­er him the pres­i­dent of Egypt.”

    Clash­es between sup­port­ers of Pres­i­dent Mor­si and secu­ri­ty forces erupt­ed at Cairo Uni­ver­si­ty ear­ly on Wednes­day morn­ing, Reuters news agency report­ed.

    It quot­ed a health offi­cial as say­ing that three peo­ple had been killed and 90 wound­ed in the clash­es.

    The vio­lence fol­lowed oth­er out­breaks across sev­er­al parts of the cap­i­tal on Tues­day, with casu­al­ties report­ed at hos­pi­tals in the north, south and cen­tre of Cairo.

    More clash­es were report­ed across the coun­try as lead­ers of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood — the Islamist par­ty from which Mr Mor­si hails — urged their sup­port­ers on to the streets.

    ...

    Mr Mor­si ear­li­er met the head of the armed forces, Gen Abdel Fat­tah al-Sisi, for a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive day. They did not give any details of the talks, which also includ­ed Prime Min­is­ter Hisham Qandil.

    Mil­i­tary sources told the BBC the pres­i­den­t’s posi­tion was becom­ing “weak­er” with every pass­ing minute and sug­gest­ed that under the draft plan, he could be replaced by a coun­cil of cross-par­ty civil­ians and tech­nocrats ahead of new elec­tions.

    Mr Mor­si was put under fur­ther pres­sure by the res­ig­na­tion of six min­is­ters from his gov­ern­ment on Mon­day, includ­ing For­eign Min­is­ter Kamel Amr.

    On Tues­day, the spokes­men for the pres­i­den­cy and the cab­i­net were also report­ed to have quit.

    The UN high com­mis­sion­er for human rights called on the pres­i­dent to engage in a “seri­ous nation­al dia­logue” to end the polit­i­cal cri­sis, and said noth­ing should be done to under­mine the demo­c­ra­t­ic process.
    ...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | July 2, 2013, 5:52 pm
  8. Uhhh....“We inves­ti­gat­ed the report­ed inci­dent at the time and con­clud­ed that it was not a tar­get­ed attack and was like­ly to be con­nect­ed to rou­tine exer­cis­es being con­duct­ed by the Egypt­ian mil­i­tary in the area at the time.”:

    The Guardian
    Sharm el-Sheikh flight from Stanst­ed dodged mis­sile last August

    Thom­son Air­ways plane head­ing to Egypt­ian resort forced to take eva­sive action after pro­jec­tile spot­ted by pilot, British gov­ern­ment con­firms

    Gwyn Topham Trans­port cor­re­spon­dent

    Sat­ur­day 7 Novem­ber 2015 05.24 EST

    A plane car­ry­ing British hol­i­day­mak­ers to Sharm el-Sheikh came with­in 300 metres (1,000ft) of a mis­sile as it neared the Egypt­ian air­port in August, the gov­ern­ment has con­firmed.

    A Thom­son Air­ways flight from Lon­don Stanst­ed to the Red Sea resort, car­ry­ing 189 pas­sen­gers, took eva­sive action after the mis­sile was spot­ted in its tra­jec­to­ry by the pilot. The crew of flight TOM 476 land­ed the plane safe­ly and pas­sen­gers were not advised of the inci­dent, which occurred on 23 August.

    The inci­dent is not thought to be direct­ly linked to Britain’s deci­sion to cur­tail flights to Sharm el-Sheikh in the wake of the crash of the Russ­ian Metro­jet air­lin­er, killing 224 peo­ple, last Sat­ur­day. How­ev­er, it will under­line fears that region­al insta­bil­i­ty could threat­en flights, as more coun­tries joined Britain in restrict­ing air trav­el and impos­ing tougher secu­ri­ty mea­sures.

    The Depart­ment for Trans­port (DfT) con­firmed that the inci­dent took place but said it did not believe the mis­sile was an attempt to tar­get the British plane, instead ascrib­ing the mis­sile seen by the Thom­son pilots to Egypt­ian mil­i­tary manoeu­vres. Air­lines are cur­rent­ly pro­hib­it­ed from fly­ing below 26,000 feet over the Sinai penin­su­la due to fears that Islam­ic mil­i­tants fight­ing the Egypt­ian gov­ern­ment could have weapons capa­ble of bring­ing down a plane.

    The Man­pads – portable anti-air­craft mis­sile launch­ers, which intel­li­gence agen­cies believe Isis-affil­i­at­ed groups could pos­sess – are capa­ble of tar­get­ing planes only at low alti­tudes. A gov­ern­ment spokesper­son said: “We inves­ti­gat­ed the report­ed inci­dent at the time and con­clud­ed that it was not a tar­get­ed attack and was like­ly to be con­nect­ed to rou­tine exer­cis­es being con­duct­ed by the Egypt­ian mil­i­tary in the area at the time.”

    Thom­son said that crew report­ed the mis­sile near-miss to the DfT imme­di­ate­ly after con­duct­ing an assess­ment upon land­ing in Sharm el-Sheikh, in line with estab­lished pro­to­col.

    ...

    So after tak­ing eva­sive action the plane still came about 1000 feet from a mis­sile? It would be inter­est­ing to learn just how close the mis­sile would have come to the plane if it had­n’t tak­en eva­sive action. Was it lit­er­al­ly tar­get­ing the plane’s path and on track to hit with­out eva­sive action? If so, giv­en the spec­u­la­tion that it was a bomb that took down the Russ­ian Metro­jet, point­ing towards a poten­tial insid­er-threat in Egyp­t’s air­port secu­ri­ty, and giv­en that the group claim­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty was Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, a group of for­mer mil­i­tary offi­cers turned Islamist mil­i­tant who pledged alle­giance to ISIS, you have to won­der if the Ansar Beit al-Maqdis­’s mem­bers are all for­mer offi­cers.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | November 7, 2015, 3:22 pm

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