With hundreds dead and many more injured after Egyptian security forces dispersed protests supporting former-President Mohammed Morsi, a spokesman for Morsi’s ally the Muslim Brotherhood said the group remains “defiant.” Speaking on Twitter, Gehad El-Haddad said, “We will always b non-violent & peaceful. We remain strong, defiant & resolved.” He said they would push forward until they “bring down” the military coup.
His claims of peacefulness contrasted with reports from Ahram Online, which said the pro-Morsi protesters had used live fire in the clashes with security forces. Either way, it looks like Egypt is in for potentially violent struggle, and that’s bad for you.
The Egyptian government also claimed the Muslim Brotherhood had given instructions to “attack police stations,” Ahram reported. The Egyptian media group also said that mobs attacked Christian churches and other property.
The death toll was also a widely disagreed upon fact. The Egyptian Health Ministry, according to a report from Ahram, was saying that at least 281 had been killed and 1,400 injured. Muslim Brotherhood spokesman El-Haddad put the deaths at more than 4,500, claiming on Twitter that the government was burning bodies to hide the real total.
Comments from the Muslim Brotherhood spokesman also should sound very troubling to the US. “Any country continues 2 back & provide aid/support 2 tyrannical #Military_Coup gov in #Egypt will b considered complicit in it,” El-Haddad said. He further noted that after a New York Times article reported the US wasn’t yet changing its policy towards Egypt, “& they ask why Egyptians now hate US !”
In short, Egypt looks to be in prolonged turmoil that could hurt the oil trade, and the US is considered complicit by the most powerful group opposing the military government. It’s bad news all around.
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, August 15, 2013)