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| Africa North |
| Egypt’s Sisi names new armed forces chief of staff |
| 2017-10-29 |
| [ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi has named a new armed forces chief of staff, the presidency said in a brief statement on Saturday. He appointed former defense ministry secretary general Mohammed Farid Hegazy to the post, it said, without giving a reason for the change. His predecessor Mahmoud Hegazy, who had held the post since March 2014, was named a presidential adviser. Linked to Sisi through the marriage of their respective children, Mahmoud Hegazy recently returned from Washington where military chiefs had gathered to discuss fighting "terrorism". Mohammed Farid Hegazy’s appointment is a major change in the military establishment. Sisi came to power after the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, for whom he had served as defense minister. The country’s armed forces have since faced an Islamist insurgency including by ISIS, with hundreds of coppers and soldiers killed. The insurgency is concentrated on North Sinai province, although ISIS has also extended its presence to southern Egypt and the Nile Delta, north of the capital. Egypt shakes up security brass, week after deadly attack [IsraelTimes] Military chief, top security official and several generals sacked, in apparent reaction to ambush outside Cairo last week that killed at least 16. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi replaced his armed forces chief of staff, while the Interior Ministry, in charge of police, dismissed the head of national security, a handful of generals, and a dozen big shots responsible for the area where the deadly shootout occurred. The move was not unexpected after officials publicly evoked potential intelligence failures, lack of coordination, or incompetence as playing a factor in the losses, the latest installment of Egypt’s ongoing war against Islamic holy warriors, including the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... group. Last Friday’s attack took place in the al-Wahat al-Bahriya area in Giza province, about 135 kilometers (84 miles) southwest of Cairo ‐ a gateway into Egypt’s vast Western Desert which leads to lawless Libya. Authorities consider the area an infiltration path for smugglers and holy warriors, and have blamed some past attacks on forces of Evil moving through. The ambush’s brazenness and location raised the specter of the simmering insurgency creeping closer to the capital, which has been largely secure and far from what has long been its main front ‐ a northeastern corner of the Sinai Peninsula. Security troops have announced major operations in the Western Desert and areas near Cairo in recent days, and foreign companies and embassies have long warned expats against travel to such places, even those as seemingly tame as the Fayoum Oasis. Just a day ago, security forces killed 13 snuffies in another shootout in the western desert, during a raid on an alleged holy warrior hideout in the New Valley province which shares part of the mostly non-existent border with Libya. The attack a week ago that seemingly prompted the leadership shakeup appeared to be a carefully planned ambush that trapped many counter terrorism officers as well, with police ranks of those killed reaching up to brigadier-generals. The troops had been acting on intelligence and moving against a holy warrior hideout backed by armored personnel carriers when they drew fire and rocket-propelled grenades, according to officials who reported the incident anonymously because they weren’t authorized to brief journalists. They added that the force likely ran out of ammunition and that the snuffies captured several coppers and later killed them. While the official corpse count announced by the Interior Ministry was 16 at the end of the day, with 15 snuffies killed or maimed, officials who spoke with the News Agency that Dare Not be Named earlier had cited over 50 coppers killed in the attack. That would make it one of the worst on Egyptian police in years, although the differing numbers could not be reconciled. No one grabbed credit for the attack, although the IS local affiliate is spearheading an insurgency in Sinai, which borders Israel and the Gazoo Strip, and the group has been active recently in neighboring Libya, home to a wide array of holy warriors. The last time Egypt’s security forces suffered such a heavy loss of life was in July 2015 when IS forces of Evil carried out a series of coordinated attacks, including suicide kabooms, against army and police positions in Sinai, killing at least 50. However, a poor excuse is better than no excuse at all... the army then said only 17 soldiers were killed along with over 100 holy warriors. |
| Posted by:Fred |