Miami Herald Logo

Militants turning to violence in Egypt; groups use Facebook to threaten police | Miami Herald

×
  • E-edition
  • Home
    • Site Information
    • Contact Us
    • About Us
    • Herald Store
    • RSS Feeds
    • Special Sections
    • Advertise
    • Advertise with Us
    • Media Kit
    • Mobile
    • Mobile Apps & eReaders
    • Newsletters
    • Social
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Google+
    • Instagram
    • YouTube

    • Sections
    • News
    • South Florida
    • Miami-Dade
    • Broward
    • Florida Keys
    • Florida
    • Politics
    • Weird News
    • Weather
    • National & World
    • Colombia
    • National
    • World
    • Americas
    • Cuba
    • Guantánamo
    • Haiti
    • Venezuela
    • Local Issues
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health Care
    • In Depth
    • Issues & Ideas
    • Traffic
    • Sections
    • Sports
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Pro & College
    • Miami Dolphins
    • Miami Heat
    • Miami Marlins
    • Florida Panthers
    • College Sports
    • University of Miami
    • Florida International
    • University of Florida
    • Florida State University
    • More Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Auto Racing
    • Fighting
    • Golf
    • Horse Racing
    • Outdoors
    • Soccer
    • Tennis
    • Youth Sports
    • Other Sports
    • Politics
    • Elections
    • The Florida Influencer Series
    • Sections
    • Business
    • Business Monday
    • Banking
    • International Business
    • National Business
    • Personal Finance
    • Real Estate News
    • Small Business
    • Technology
    • Tourism & Cruises
    • Workplace
    • Business Plan Challenge
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Cindy Krischer Goodman
    • The Starting Gate
    • Work/Life Balancing Act
    • Movers
    • Sections
    • Living
    • Advice
    • Fashion
    • Food & Drink
    • Health & Fitness
    • Home & Garden
    • Pets
    • Recipes
    • Travel
    • Wine
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Dave Barry
    • Ana Veciana-Suarez
    • Flashback Miami
    • More Living
    • LGBTQ South Florida
    • Palette Magazine
    • Indulge Magazine
    • South Florida Album
    • Broward Album
    • Sections
    • Entertainment
    • Books
    • Comics
    • Games & Puzzles
    • Horoscopes
    • Movies
    • Music & Nightlife
    • People
    • Performing Arts
    • Restaurants
    • TV
    • Visual Arts
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Jose Lambiet
    • Lesley Abravanel
    • More Entertainment
    • Events Calendar
    • Miami.com
    • Contests & Promotions
    • Sections
    • All Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Op-Ed
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Jim Morin
    • Letters to the Editor
    • From Our Inbox
    • Speak Up
    • Submit a Letter
    • Meet the Editorial Board
    • Influencers Opinion
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Blog Directory
    • Columnist Directory
    • Andres Oppenheimer
    • Carl Hiaasen
    • Leonard Pitts Jr.
    • Fabiola Santiago
    • Obituaries
    • Obituaries in the News
    • Place an Obituary

    • Place an ad
    • All Classifieds
    • Announcements
    • Apartments
    • Auctions/Sales
    • Automotive
    • Commercial Real Estate
    • Employment
    • Garage Sales
    • Legals
    • Merchandise
    • Obituaries
    • Pets
    • Public Notices
    • Real Estate
    • Services
  • Public Notices
  • Cars
  • Jobs
  • Moonlighting
  • Real Estate
  • Mobile & Apps

  • el Nuevo Herald
  • Miami.com
  • Indulge

Latest News

Militants turning to violence in Egypt; groups use Facebook to threaten police

By Amina Ismail

    ORDER REPRINT →

February 21, 2014 04:23 PM

Islamist opponents of Egypt’s military-led government are increasingly embracing militant tactics to push back against the months-long crackdown that has seen 23,000 people arrested in the past seven months.

Some are joining extremist groups calling for jihad and some are establishing armed groups of their own. Others are turning to social media to advocate a new level of violence, calling for assassinations, kidnappings and the torching of police cars, on Facebook pages that quickly draw tens of thousands of “fans” in an eery echo of the way the 2011 uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak began.

The pages are often deleted before police are able to home in on the creators. Hany Abdel Latif, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, said he believes the rise in such calls for violence match what has been an increase in attacks on police, which have killed 233 officers since Islamist President Mohammed Morsi was toppled from office July 3.

“It is an attempt to intimidate the police, but they are failing,” he said.

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

The most recent attacks came Thursday, when gunmen on a motorcycle killed a police officer and injured three others in Sharqiya province, 70 miles north of Cairo. It was one of three drive-by attacks in Sharqiya, which, perhaps not coincidentally, is Morsi’s home province.

Some angry Morsi supporters say they believe only tit-for-tat violence will end government oppression, which includes the deaths of hundreds of peaceful protesters and thousands of detentions. Those detained say they’ve been beaten, made to go without food and tortured. Women arrested have told McClatchy they have been subjected to pregnancy and virginity tests.

“I believe that a big part of the oppression we are seeing now will end as soon as the Ministry of Interior collapses,” said a woman in her 20s who asked to be identified only as Sarah. “The army depends on the police. The army is the nation’s prestige, but the Interior Ministry is its power.”

Sarah said she was a sympathizer but not a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the secretive Islamist group through which Morsi rose to prominence; it was been banned Dec. 25 by the military-led government as a terrorist organization. She said her husband, who is not a Brotherhood member, has been jailed for the past seven months and her sister, who is a Brotherhood member, was arrested and beaten by security forces.

There is little subtle about some of the Facebook pages. One, named “Execution Movement,” declared: “We will not stop until we destroy everyone whose hands had been contaminated with the blood of the honorable Egyptians regardless of their political or religious affiliation.” The page had roughly 20,000 fans before it was deleted.

On Feb. 10, a statement posted on the page claimed responsibility for “operations targeting security forces, thugs and corrupt officials.” The statement also claimed “the abduction of 10 members of the coup,” a reference to Morsi’s ouster, and “the execution of three thugs implicated in supporting the breakup of sit-ins and the killing of citizens.”

The Muslim Brotherhood repeatedly has denounced violence, but with so many of its leaders currently in jail, it appears to have lost control of its younger members.

“The streets’ movement will steer until the security forces surrender,” said a Muslim Brotherhood youth leader in his early 30s, referring to such calls for violence. He asked not to be identified because he fears arrest.

“Instead of cursing the darkness, go and light a candle,” read a slogan below a picture of a torched police car posted on the Facebook page of another group, “Muslim Brotherhood, education, jihad and preaching.” The group posted a long list of contact information and home addresses of policemen.

Such groups terrify police.

Maj. Gen. Sameh Kelani, the head of security in Sharqiya, banned police officers from wearing uniforms outside police headquarters “for their own safety and to prevent any attempt to target them,” according to state radio.

A police colonel in Cairo told McClatchy that someone stole a contact list containing the names, phone numbers and addresses of state security officers throughout the country when protesters overran police headquarters in 2011. “So (the public) has the personal data of the police,” he said, adding that “some police change their numbers and addresses out of fear.” The colonel spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly.

“Really?” said Sarah as a smile lit her round face when McClatchy reporter told her that police are living in fear. “I am so happy to hear that.”

Security forces violently dispersed two large encampments in August set up in support of Morsi, killing at least 1,200 and injuring hundreds. Sarah said that some of her friends were among them. After almost seven months of seeing many family members and friends killed, beaten and imprisoned by the security forces, Sarah had decided peaceful protest was not enough.

“I am not really interested in marches anymore,” Sarah said. “Now there are quick marches and protest, just to prove our presence. We are depending on the other work more,” referring to torching police cars and taking revenge and threatening the police forces.

Sarah is one of the 49,421 fans of another Facebook group called “Molotov.”

The group mainly shares videos of “MB members” stopping traffic and throwing Molotov cocktails. The group’s “wall” contained dozens of postings about torched police cars and shootings at police from all over Egypt before the page was deleted.

Almost every day there are reports of police cars or private cars that belong to police officers being set of fire. Sarah said each torching involves “10 young men” who “work together” and use “mainly Molotov cocktails,” glass bottles filled with flammable liquid.

The Egyptian government is also facing violence from already established militant groups. Ansar Bayt al Maqdis, an al Qaida-inspired group based in the Sinai Peninsula, has claimed a number of assassinations of Interior Ministry officials, and most recently it said it was responsible for the bombing of a tourist bus in southern Sinai that killed four South Koreans.

Another previously unknown group, Ajnad Misr, Arabic for Egypt’s Soldiers, said it had carried out a double bombing that hit a police vehicle on a bridge earlier this month.

Sarah is unsurprised by the direction the opposition movement is now taking. Six months ago, in an interview with McClatchy, she had warned of escalating violence if the clampdown continued on the Brotherhood.

The government “is creating terrorists,” she warned then.

Related stories from Miami Herald

latest-news

Al Jazeera journalists make first court appearance in Egypt

February 20, 2014 01:42 PM

latest-news

Egypt charges 20 Al Jazeera journalists with running terrorist cell

January 29, 2014 05:26 PM

latest-news

Egypt silences ex-leader with soundproof box for court appearance

January 28, 2014 02:47 PM

news

Crowds in Cairo’s Tahrir Square hail military to mark anniversary of ‘revolution’; at least 29 dead nationwide

January 25, 2014 02:37 PM

latest-news

Deadly blast sets Egypt on edge ahead of revolt’s anniversary

January 24, 2014 04:50 PM

  Comments  

Videos

Baby born on a JetBlue flight

The Cuban government didn’t allow a cruise ship from the Port of Palm Beach to dock in Havana Friday (IN SPANISH)

View More Video

Trending Stories

Military planes carrying 180 tons of aid for Venezuelans fly from Miami to Colombia

February 16, 2019 08:00 AM

Here are some of the worst mistakes immigrants make applying for legal papers

February 15, 2019 11:26 AM

Dolphins hire ex-Raiders GM Reggie McKenzie, the league’s 2016 executive of year

February 16, 2019 04:27 PM

Panic at the Orlando airport when a man alarms passengers at security checkpoint

February 16, 2019 02:52 PM

Mark Walton, former Canes star now with the Cincinnati Bengals, arrested in Miami

February 16, 2019 11:05 AM

Read Next

Did the rock star unzip it on stage in Miami? Fifty years later, let’s take a look

Entertainment

Did the rock star unzip it on stage in Miami? Fifty years later, let’s take a look

By Miami Herald Archives

    ORDER REPRINT →

February 17, 2019 09:41 AM

Did Jim Morrison expose himself in Miami? After the Doors played Dinner key on March 1, 1969, the criminal justice system went to work. The Lizard King was arrested and put on trial for indecent exposure.

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE LATEST NEWS

Herbal water for babies with tummy discomfort recalled for possible choking hazard

Health & Fitness

Herbal water for babies with tummy discomfort recalled for possible choking hazard

February 17, 2019 09:35 AM
Haitian prime minister breaks silence on violent protests

Haiti

Haitian prime minister breaks silence on violent protests

February 17, 2019 12:07 AM
One dead in shooting near South Beach’s Ocean Drive

Miami Beach

One dead in shooting near South Beach’s Ocean Drive

February 17, 2019 06:47 AM
It needed overtime, but Palmer Trinity boys’ soccer will defend its state title

Miami-Dade High Schools

It needed overtime, but Palmer Trinity boys’ soccer will defend its state title

February 16, 2019 07:59 PM
LaSalle boys’ soccer will play for a state title — and made school history along the way

High School Sports

LaSalle boys’ soccer will play for a state title — and made school history along the way

February 16, 2019 11:20 PM
For the first time in eight years, Varela boys’ soccer returns to state title game

Miami-Dade High Schools

For the first time in eight years, Varela boys’ soccer returns to state title game

February 16, 2019 07:56 PM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

Miami Herald App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • eEdition
  • Vacation Hold
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Rewards
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
  • Public Insight Network
  • Reader Panel
Advertising
  • Place a Classified
  • Media Kit
  • Commercial Printing
  • Public Notices
Copyright
Commenting Policy
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story