Muslim Brotherhood Local Headquarters Attacked; One Killed

Tensions between the Muslim Brotherhood and its many opponents are turning into actual violence.

A Muslim Brotherhood member was killed and 60 people were injured on Sunday in an attack on the main office of the Brotherhood in the Egyptian Nile Delta town of Damanhour, the website of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party said.

“Brotherhood member, Islam Fathy Masoud, 15, was killed and 60 were injured after thugs attacked the Muslim Brotherhood’s headquarters in Damanhour in the total absence of police forces,” the website said.

Judges are revolting against Musilm Brotherhood rule in their own way, with words, accusing the regime of asserting unrestricted executive power and thus diminishing the powers of the judges (which are supposed to serve as a check on the executive).

The country awaits big protests this weekend.

For the past several days, Morsi’s opponents and members of his Muslim Brotherhood have battled it out in the streets of several cities in the Nile Delta in violence that has left at least five dead. The latest died Friday from injuries suffered in fighting the day before, security officials said.

Many fear the clashes are a sign of more widespread and bloodier battles to come on Sunday, the anniversary of Morsi’s inauguration, when the opposition says it will bring millions into the streets around the country.

The protesters insist there should be new elections. The army's position in this so far is deliberately vague:

That has set up a showdown in the streets in the coming days. Mursi's Islamist supporters and some opposition groups plan rallies on Friday, and the broad opposition coalition hopes to bring millions out on Sunday to demand new elections.

The army has urged both sides to reconcile and has warned that it could step back in to impose order if violence spins out of control – though it insists it will defend the democracy born out of the uprising against Mubarak in early 2011.

I note the Army does not say it will defend Morsi -- it says it will defend democracy. I don't know if they've decided Morsi = democracy.

And yet Obama remains silent, and seems to be supporting the Muslim Brother government at least through inaction.

Egypt appears to be on the brink of chaos this week but the best advice America’s ambassador has for an embattled religious minority in the world’s most populous country is to stay home. The report about the visit of Ambassador Anne Patterson to Coptic Pope Tawadros II came from an Egyptian paper but is spreading rapidly around the Internet and being cited as an example of the tacit support the United States continues to show for the government of President Mohamad Morsi even as the country starts to fall apart But with a mass protest scheduled for Sunday — the event Ambassador Patterson wanted Copts to stay away from — the president’s attitude toward the demonstrations that are shaking Morsi’s grip on power is more than a matter of curiosity.

This is, after all, an administration that did a lot to encourage the first round of Arab spring protests in Egypt that took down longtime U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak and ultimately replaced him with a Muslim Brotherhood government that may be far worse than deposed authoritarian.

And that support may be more than tacit.

A senior Obama administration official confirmed to Fox News that members of the National Security Council staff met with a controversial Muslim scholar, but stressed that they were focused on his recent efforts to counter the Al Qaeda narrative.

The official was responding to a report on Wednesday from The Investigative Project on Terrorism, which uncovered a statement on the website of Sheikh Abdullah Bin Bayyah claiming he met June 13 with Obama administration officials at the White House.

Bin Bayyah is vice president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, a group founded by Egyptian cleric Yusuf Qaradawi -- a Muslim Brotherhood leader who has called for the death of Jews and Americans and himself is banned from visiting the U.S.

Bin Bayyah, for his part, has urged the U.N. to criminalize blasphemy. His group has spoken out in favor of Hamas and in 2009 issued a fatwa barring "all forms of normalization" with Israel.

He also has said that terrorism cannot be justified by the text of the Koran, but we've heard people say that before, and not seem to mean it terribly much. The leader of the organization has also...

....urged Muslim nations to acquire nuclear weapons, demanded the death of American soldiers in Iraq, and defended Hitler.

Anti-Morsi protesters are displaying Obama's image, and not in a Hopey-Changey way, either.

Those must be the Extremist Tea Party Types at Tahir Square.

The latest news on the protests, via Twitter (unreliable) and Russia Today (Soviet agitprop remnant which is also unreliable), is that 70 have been injured in the Alexandria protests, and that Muslim Brother headquarters in three cities have been set on fire.

Here's a picture of (I think) one headquarters "on fire," thought it appears, at least at this point, the office isn't on fire. There is a large bonfire outside it and near it, but I don't know if that grim concrete fasçade is going to catch fire anytime soon. But it does seem like a threatening protest.

posted by Ace at 01:01 PM

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