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Egyptian General Calls for Mass Demonstrations Egyptian General Calls for Mass Protests
(about 9 hours later)
CAIRO — The commander of the armed forces on Wednesday called on Egyptians to hold mass demonstrations on Friday that he said would give the army a “mandate” to fight violence and terrorism, signaling a possible crackdown against Islamist supporters of Egypt’s deposed president. CAIRO — The commander of the armed forces asked Egyptians on Wednesday to hold mass demonstrations that would give him a “mandate” to confront violence and terrorism, appealing to one side of Egypt’s sharply divided populace and raising the specter of broader unrest.
The call for popular action by the commander, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, further undermined the military’s repeated assertions that it would not interfere in politics. During a speech to recent military graduates, the commander, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, warned of forces taking the country into a “dark tunnel,” a clear reference to Islamist supporters of the deposed president, Mohamed Morsi, and he asked Egyptians to protest on Friday.
“I’ve never asked you for anything,” said General Sisi, who deposed Egypt’s first freely elected president, Mohamed Morsi, three weeks ago. “I’m asking you to show the world. If violence is sought, or terrorism is sought, the military and the police are authorized to confront this.” “I’m asking you to show the world,” he said. “If violence is sought, or terrorism is sought, the military and the police are authorized to confront this.”
General Sisi’s comments, in a speech to military graduates, quickly revived questions about his role in Egypt’s political transition while deepening the sense that he, rather than the interim government the generals installed, is Egypt’s de facto leader. Wearing dark glasses throughout his speech, the general seemed at times to be speaking directly to Mr. Morsi’s Islamist supporters, who have held marches almost every day to protest the president’s removal. The call for mass mobilization thrust the general into the center of Egypt’s contentious politics, raising questions about his ambitions while contradicting the military’s pledges to defer to civilian leaders after removing Mr. Morsi. His appeal also hinted at a broader crackdown against Islamists, whose leaders have already been detained.
The speech quickly fueled fears among Islamists of an imminent military crackdown, including the dispersing of sit-ins that have become a nuisance for the military-backed government. Addressing Egyptians during a television interview after General Sisi’s speech, Mohamed el-Beltagy, a senior leader of Mr. Morsi’s movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, said the general “wants an authorization from you to murder.” As the Muslim Brotherhood planned competing protests on Friday, Egyptians faced another threat of bloody street clashes in what has become a long and wearying cycle.
No “honorable Egyptian” would respond to such a call, Mr. Beltagy said. In a statement, the Brotherhood said the general’s speech amounted to a call for “civil war.”
The developments on Wednesday came after a weeklong surge in violence across the country, and left Egypt facing the possibility of another Friday of dueling mass protests and further unrest as the Brotherhood announced plans for its own marches. The speech came just hours after the authorities said unknown attackers had bombed a police station north of the capital, Cairo. A long night of political bloodshed on Tuesday left at least 12 people dead and seemed to dispel any notion that the military’s ouster of Mr. Morsi would quickly provide the security that Egypt’s generals covet. Michael Wahid Hanna, who studies Egyptian politics at the Century Foundation, a left-leaning policy group, said the speech was “pretty ominous.”
The death toll was the highest in a single stretch since July 8, when at least 62 people were killed by gunfire from soldiers and police officers who shot at a group of Morsi supporters. “At best this was an irresponsible effort to isolate the Muslim Brotherhood, to gain leverage in whatever negotiations ensue,” he said. “At worst, it will green-light violence at lower levels and potentially provide a mandate to use force to break up the sit-in,” a reference to the Cairo encampment of Mr. Morsi’s supporters.
Images of the latest fighting between Mr. Morsi’s supporters and opponents, which began on Monday, were jarring. Civilians, including a well-known actor, were seen firing weapons during running battles near Cairo landmarks. “Neither of those things is good,” Mr. Hanna added.
“The violence is a reflection of the political deadlock and the inability to find a way out,” said Khalil al-Anani, a leading academic expert on Egyptian politics and political Islam. And on both sides, he said, “the camps that favor confrontation have the upper hand.” Wednesday’s developments cemented a standoff between the Brotherhood and the military that started after the generals removed Mr. Morsi from power on July 3. Since then, the military has held Mr. Morsi incommunicado in an undisclosed location, ignoring calls from Western allies and the United Nations to release him. An interim government has pressed ahead quickly, securing financial aid and beginning the process of amending the Constitution, while trying to fend off questions about its own legitimacy.
Egypt’s post-Morsi government, its authority in dispute, has given little indication that it has a solution to the bloodshed. On Tuesday, officials gave mixed messages about their approach. The Brotherhood has adopted an increasingly confrontational stance to support its effort to restore Mr. Morsi to power. The group’s sit-ins have given way to daily marches, many of which have been attacked by shadowy armed groups. Other marches are clearly intended to provoke a response.
A spokesman for the interim president, Adli Mansour, delivered a stern warning to Mr. Morsi’s supporters, saying, “Egypt will not be a second Syria, and those who push in that direction are traitors,” according to the state news media. While General Sisi’s speech intensified Islamist fears about the return of a police state, it may well have strengthened the Brotherhood’s hand.
“Those wheezing as they chase foreign media, and who run after the capitals of the West to falsify the facts of the revolution and the Egyptian state, will only get shame and disgrace,” he said. “The Brotherhood needs the repression to get worse, to effectively make their case to the broader public,” said Shadi Hamid, a researcher at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar who studies the group.
Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel laureate who serves as one of Mr. Mansour’s vice presidents, struck a more conciliatory note, urging the newly appointed justice minister to investigate the July 8 killings, as well as the recent killings of three pro-Morsi demonstrators in the city of Mansura. Brotherhood leaders quickly seized on the speech as evidence that General Sisi was Egypt’s new dictator, saying that the country had returned to “fascist military rule that confiscates the people’s freedom, sovereignty and dignity.”
“Transitional justice and national reconciliation based on accepting the other is our only option,” he said in a Twitter post. “I pray to God that we understand that violence doesn’t dress wounds, it opens new ones.” “We hold General Sisi completely responsible for any blood that is shed from any Egyptian citizen, as well as for deepening national division,” the group said.
The bloodshed has spread beyond the political fights in the capital, intensifying the sense of a vacuum in leadership. Violence has flared in the Sinai Peninsula, where civilians and more than a dozen soldiers have been killed in attacks by unidentified militants since the military takeover that ousted Mr. Morsi on July 3. The arguments between the Islamists and the military, as well as General Sisi’s turn in the spotlight, further sidelined Egypt’s civilian government, which was mostly silent on Wednesday.
Two days later, the authorities stood by as an angry crowd set upon Christian families near Luxor, killing four people, after the body of a Muslim man was found near Christian homes. In a report released on Tuesday, Amnesty International said, “Security forces on the scene made only halfhearted attempts to end the violence.” A conference on Wednesday that the government billed as an effort at national reconciliation was overshadowed by the speech. It was also boycotted by the very Islamist forces, including the Brotherhood, whose grievances have widened Egypt’s divide.
The group said it had documented cases in the past in which Egypt’s security forces used unnecessary force or live fire during demonstrations, “yet in this case, they held back, even though people’s lives were threatened.” Neither the interim president nor the prime minister spoke publicly about the general’s call for mass protests. On Wednesday evening, a spokesman for the president was quoted in the state newspaper praising the military.
“Egypt started the war on terrorism, and the call of General el-Sisi is to protect the revolution and the state,” said the spokesman, Ahmed Al-Muslimani.
Hours before General Sisi’s speech, unidentified attackers bombed a police station north of Cairo, raising the specter of a new kind of political violence.
Speaking to the military graduates in the coastal city of Alexandria, General Sisi warned Egyptians and the country’s “political forces” of the need to confront such violence.
“We aren’t going to wait until there’s a big problem and then ask, ‘Why did this happen?’ ” he said.
The speech, by turns paternal and confrontational, was largely devoted to rebutting criticism that the general had betrayed Mr. Morsi, who promoted him nearly a year ago. General Sisi also insisted that the promised transition to an elected government would not be derailed.
“Please never think it could be abandoned, even for a moment,” he said.

Robert F. Worth contributed reporting.