Israel Matzav

It starts: Egyptian army takes over state television building

The Egyptian army ultimatum to Islamist President Mohammed Morsy was not a bluff. The army has taken over the Egyptian television building.

Egypt’s leading democracy advocate, Mohamed ElBaradei, and top Muslim and Coptic Christian clerics met Wednesday with the army chief to discuss a political road map for Egypt only hours before a military ultimatum to the Islamist president was set to expire. The meeting signaled the military was taking concrete moves toward implementing its plan to replace President Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected leader who came to office a year ago.

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ElBaradei is the leader of the main opposition grouping, the National Salvation Front. He was accompanied in the meeting with army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi by Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb, grand imam of Al-Azhar mosque, and Pope Tawadros II, patriarch of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority.

Under a plan leaked to state media, the military would install a new interim leadership, the Islamist-backed constitution would be suspended and the Islamist-dominated parliament dissolved.

The military has said it would implement its plan once its two-day ultimatum to Morsi expires, between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. Egypt time (5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Israel time).

In one of the first signs that the army was beginning to implement its  ultimatum, forces had taken over the state television studios in Cairo, al-Arabiya reported early afternoon Wednesday.

 Hmmm. Sounds better already.

Labels: al-Azhar, Christian Copts, Egyptian army, Egyptian democracy, Mohamed ElBaradei

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:57 PM