Israel Matzav

Video: Egyptian protesters push full armored police van off 50 foot high bridge

Egyptian protesters pushed an armored police van full of officers off the 6th of October Bridge in Cairo on Wednesday, as scores of people were killed in riots touched off by police raids on tent camps set up by supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood.



There's a series of images of the van, and of the police officers inside it lying wounded under the bridge, here. Jerusalem-based cameraman Mick Deane of Sky News was killed in the riots.

149 people are confirmed dead in riots in Egypt on Wednesday, and some 2,000 were wounded.

While dead bodies wrapped in carpets were carried to a makeshift morgue near the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, the army-backed rulers declared a one-month state of emergency, restoring to the military the unfettered power it wielded for decades before a pro-democracy uprising in 2011.

Thousands of Morsi's supporters had been camped at two major sites in Cairo since before he was toppled on July 3, and had vowed not leave the streets until he was returned to power.
With the assault, the authorities ended the six-week stand-off with a show of state force that defied international pleas for restraint. Egypt is the strategic heart of the Middle East, striding the Suez Canal and with a peace treaty with Israel.

Violence spread beyond Cairo, with Morsi supporters and security forces clashing in the cities of Alexandria, Minya, Assiut, Fayoum and Suez and in Buhayra and Beni Suef provinces.

The bloodshed also effectively ends the open political role of the Brotherhood, with the harshest ever crackdown on a movement that survived underground for 85 years to emerge after the 2011 uprising and win every election held since.

Security officials said senior Brotherhood figures Mohamed El-Beltagi and Essam El-Erian were arrested, joining Mursi himself and other Brotherhood leaders in jail. Beltagi's 17-year-old daughter was among the dead.

Before he was arrested, Beltagi warned of wider conflict, and singled out the head of the armed forces who deposed Morsi on July 3 following mass protests.

"I swear by God that if you stay in your homes, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will embroil this country so that it becomes Syria. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will push this nation to a civil war so that he escapes the gallows."

Read the whole thing. 

While Muslims murder Muslims in Egypt and Syria, it's relatively quiet here in Israel. But John Kerry is laying the groundwork for 'Palestinians' to rise up when their 'peace talks' fail. What could go wrong?

Labels: Egypt, Egyptian army, Egyptian democracy, Egyptian Revolution, Mohammed Morsy, Muslim Brotherhood

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:47 PM