White House looking for immediate regime change in Egypt
Vicious street fighting continues in Cairo
The New York Times reported on Thursday evening that the White House is in communication with officials close to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in an effort to convince the embattled leader to step aside immediately instead of finishing out his current term in September as he would prefer.
According to the report, the US plan would see newly-appointed Vice President Omar Suleiman placed in charge of a transitional government supported by the Egyptian Army. The transitional government would include representatives from "a broad range of opposition groups, including the banned Muslim Brotherhood."
Officials tempered the announcement by reminding reporters that the talks were in a preliminary stage and that neither Suleiman or the Army had made any commitments.
Mubarak gave a defiant interview to ABC News 's Christiane Amanpour Thursday evening, saying he would "never run away" and would "die on the soil of Egypt."
"I am fed up. After 62 years in public service, I have had enough. I want to go," Mubarak insisted, while saying that he could not step down now because if he did the country would descend even further into chaos, echoing his words to US President Barak Obama earlier in the day.
Protesters say the regime has organized the violence unleashed over the last few days while regime officials have blamed "foreigners" and newly appointed Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq gave a televised apology for the violence and promised an investigation.
The street fights in and around Tahrir Square in Cairo were intense Thursday evening, with journalists and rights workers being targeted, at least 8 people were reported killed and hundreds more wounded as massive fires burned out of control, looters ransacked stores and blood ran freely in the streets and the Army moved in fits and starts to separate rival groups. But in the morning anti-Mubarak forces were still in control of the square and vowed to renew protests after Friday prayers in the city's mosques.
"All of the sectarian violence is dissolving - Christians, Copts and Muslims are all working together," said one protester. "It makes you wonder where all the hatred came from; maybe it was just created by the regime."
Elsewhere, a spokesman for Egypt's banned Moslem Brotherhood organization made a statement Thursday evening in which he refused to promise that if his party comes to power it will honor the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt signed in 1979, or even recognizing Israel diplomatically, although he conceded that this was an issue that would be decided by an elected parliament representing all Egyptians.
Finally, US officials continue to keep a close eye on events on the ground in Cairo, with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen telling reporters on Thursday that he has been in communication with his Egyptian counterpart and received assurances that the Army will not fire on demonstrators. The Pentagon has also announced in recent days that it has no plans at this time to cut military aid shipments to Egypt.
Iranian leader cheers on "Islamic awareness" in Egypt
Opposition group announces sabotage campaign
"This is what was always referred to as ... Islamic awareness in connection with Iran's great Islamic Revolution," he insisted, adding his encouragement to the Egyptian protesters to overthrow President Mubarak just as he and his comrades overthrew the Shah in 1979, replacing him with a hardline Islamist government. He also gloated that such an outcome in Egypt would be an "irreparable defeat" for the US and Israel.
His remarks have been heavily criticized by government officials in Iran's Arab neighbors, and came a day after an Iranian opposition group calling itself the "Green Wave" announced plans to bring Khamenei's government "to its knees" by sabotaging the strategic energy sector, after attempts at popular protests in late 2009 and early 2010 were brutally crushed by the regime.
The Green Wave movement is led by an exiled Iranian businessman named Amir Jahanshahi, the son of a minister in the Shah's government, who has expressed hope that by hitting their business interests it might turn the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"In the next 12 months, there will be action taken to destabilise the energy sector, which has been plundered by Ahmadinejad and his entourage for personal profit and to finance terrorist groups overseas," Jahanshahi said in Paris on Thursday. "I take responsibility for everything that will happen in the energy sector, but I can't say more."
He was joined at the press conference by Mohammad Reza Madhi, a former IRGC general who leads the dissident "Circle of the People" group, which claims to have thousands of sympathizers in the IRGC and other government agencies.
In related news, the reputable International Institute for Strategic Studies in London released a study on Thursday estimating that Iran was capable of building a nuclear weapon in one to two years, but that its progress had been stymied by the Stuxnet computer worm and other problems.
"The diplomatic parlor game for the last couple of years has been guessing when the US or Israel might attack Iran's nuclear program," said IISS Director General John Chipman. "But it appears they already did but used a cyber munition with much less publicity and collateral damage."
Israeli Minister of Intelligence and Atomic Energy Dan Meridor was coy when speaking about the possibility that Israel might have been responsible for the Stuxnet worm while speaking at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs on Thursday, acknowledging that Israel needed to find new ways to fight its enemies that would not involve graphic pictures of battle being beamed around the world by cable news.
"The cyberworld ... becomes more important in the conflict between nations. It is a new battleground, if you like, not with guns but with something else," he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment