Tunesia, Egyt and now Yemen: a domino effect in the Middle East?

3 February 2011 Last updated at 22:17 GMT
Mubarak 'fears chaos if he quits'

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has said he would like to resign immediately but fears the country would descend into chaos if he did so.

In his first interview since anti-government protests began, he told ABC News he was "fed up" with power.

It came as Cairo saw another day of violence with clashes between the president's opponents and supporters.

Mr Mubarak warned that the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood party would fill any power vacuum if he stepped down.

The BBC's Paul Adams says this is a version of the narrative the president has used in the past to explain 30 years of political suppression aimed, primarily, at the Brotherhood.

Journalists beaten

Tens of thousands of protesters remain in central Cairo after dark, with some involved in a running battle with government supporters who were attacking them.

Stones have been thrown on both sides, and there has been some gunfire.

The army, which was trying to separate the two sides, appears to have failed to control the crowds.

Egypt's Health Minister Ahmed Samih Farid said that eight people had died in the fighting, which began on Wednesday, and 890 were injured, nine of them critically.

Another person was later reported killed in clashes on Abdel Monem Riyad Square, also in central Cairo. Many more were injured.

The interview is an insight into the defiant mood of Egypt's embattled leader. He insists President Obama has not asked him to leave office immediately and expresses a degree of remorse about the violence on the streets of Cairo.

But he warns if he leaves now, the Muslim Brotherhood will exploit the ensuing chaos.

At a time when Western officials, including some here in Washington, are sounding sanguine about the prospects of the Brotherhood playing a part in Egypt's political transition, President Mubarak appears to be clutching at straws of his own making.

He also says he is fed up with being president - after 62 years of public service he has had enough. For all his defiance, this seems to be a man who knows his days on the world stage are coming to an end. It is still, as ever, a question of precisely when.

The BBC's Khaled Ezzelarab in Cairo says the shift in focus from Tahrir Square to Abdel Monem Riyad Square appears to indicate a strategic advance for the anti-Mubarak protesters, who have managed to hold their ground in Tahrir and move the clashes elsewhere.

Foreign journalists reporting for several organisations were attacked, with reports of Mubarak supporters said to have stormed a number of Cairo hotels.

Some journalists were beaten with sticks and had their equipment smashed.

The New York Times said that two reporters had been released after being detained overnight on Thursday.

The attacks have drawn condemnation from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, as well as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

"Let me be totally clear: this is outrageous and totally unacceptable, it must stop now," Mr Ban said.

Later in the evening, a number of political activists were arrested by military police, as well as representatives of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

Clutching at straws

Speaking to ABC's Christiane Amanpour, Mr Mubarak denied his administration was behind the violence of the last two days, but said it had troubled him.

"I was very unhappy about yesterday. I do not want to see Egyptians fighting each other," he said.

He said the Muslim Brotherhood was behind the violence.

Mr Mubarak vowed never to leave Egypt

Mr Mubarak vowed never to leave Egypt, saying: "I would never run away from this country. I will die on this soil."

He said it was never his intention to have his son Gamal follow him into office.

Asked how he himself was feeling, he said: "I am feeling strong. I would never run away. I will die on Egyptian soil."

Meanwhile US state department spokesman Philip Crowley has urged Mr Mubarak to move "farther and faster" with the transition.

Earlier Mr Mubarak's deputy, Omar Suleiman, called for time to carry out political reforms before presidential elections in September.

He warned there would be a political vacuum if a proper period of transition was not allowed.

Deep split

In a separate development, the public prosecutor issued a travel ban on three former ministers and a senior member of the ruling party, among them the unpopular former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly.

Correspondents say these legal measures against some of the most powerful people in the country are confirmation of a deep split within the ruling elite.

The public prosecutor's statement said other officials were covered by the ban, which would last "until national security is restored and the authorities and monitoring bodies have undergone their investigations".

Unrest has left about 300 people dead across the country over the past 10 days, according to UN estimates.

If Mr Mubarak does not step down, demonstrators have planned to march on the presidential palace on Friday.

Analysis
Paul Adams BBC News, Washington

The interview is an insight into the defiant mood of Egypt's embattled leader. He insists President Obama has not asked him to leave office immediately and expresses a degree of remorse about the violence on the streets of Cairo.

But he warns if he leaves now, the Muslim Brotherhood will exploit the ensuing chaos.

At a time when Western officials, including some here in Washington, are sounding sanguine about the prospects of the Brotherhood playing a part in Egypt's political transition, President Mubarak appears to be clutching at straws of his own making.

He also says he is fed up with being president - after 62 years of public service he has had enough. For all his defiance, this seems to be a man who knows his days on the world stage are coming to an end. It is still, as ever, a question of precisely when.

Anti-regime groups are calling for Friday to be Mubarak's "day of departure" and speculation abounds that new protests could rival last Friday's, which erupted soon after midday prayers.

During a Senate hearing on Thursday, both Democrats and Republicans pressed a senior Central Intelligence Agency official about when the C.I.A. and other agencies notified President Obama of the looming crisis, and whether intelligence officers even monitored social networking sites and Internet forums to gauge popular sentiment in Egypt.

“At some point it had to have been obvious that there was going to be a huge demonstration,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who is chairwoman of the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence.

She said that intelligence agencies never sent a notice to her committee about the growing uprising in Egypt, as is customary in the case of significant global events.

Stephanie O’Sullivan, the C.I.A. official, responded that the agency had been tracking instability in Egypt for some time and had concluded that the government in Cairo was in an “untenable” situation. But, Ms. O’Sullivan said, “we didn’t know what the triggering mechanism would be.”

We only spend $250-300 billion a year on intelligence

US hatches Mubarak exit strategy as Egypt death toll mounts
Jack Shenker and Peter Beaumont in Cairo, Harriet Sherwood in Alexandria, Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Julian Borger
The Guardian, Friday 4 February 2011

• White House working on plan for transitional government
• Mubarak: 'If I resign today there will be chaos'
• 10 dead and hundreds injured in fresh crackdown


Protesters carry away an injured companion in Tahrir square in Cairo. Photograph: Khaled Elfiqi/EPA

The Obama administration is working on a plan in which the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, would stand down immediately in spite of claims yesterday he was intent on clinging on to power until the elections in the autumn.

The White House, the state department and the Pentagon have been involved in discussions that include an option in which Mubarak would given way to a transitional government headed by the Egyptian vice-president, Omar Suleiman. Such a plan has the backing of the Egyptian military, the New York Times reported.

But Mubarak, in an interview with the US media yesterday refused to bow to increasing pressure at home and abroad to stand down immediately, claiming that, though he was fed up and would like to go, he feared chaos if he did so.

In his first major interview since protests began, Mubarak told America's ABC News: "I am fed up. After 62 years in public service, I have had enough. I want to go."

Mubarak expressed no sense of betrayal over Barack Obama's call on Tuesday for him to begin the transition to democracy "now". But there was a hint of resentment when he said Obama did not understand Egyptian culture and the trouble that would ensue if he left office immediately. "If I resign today, there will be chaos," he told ABC's Christiane Amanpour.

Earlier, Suleiman offered political concessions, inviting the long-banned Muslim Brotherhood to a dialogue. However, the Islamist movement and other parties have refused to talk until Mubarak steps down.

The Egyptian regime appeared to have dug in today, defying international pressure to begin an immediate transfer of power while launching attacks on journalists and human rights observers. <cont>

“What they’re asking cannot be done,” one senior Egyptian official said, citing clauses in the Egyptian Constitution that bar the vice president from assuming power. Under the Constitution, the speaker of Parliament would succeed the president. “That’s my technical answer,” the official added. “My political answer is they should mind their own business.”

That would feed over a billion children with change for water and schools.

You noticed I am sure that even with our alleged "close military to military relationship" that it has been widely reported that nobody has the first damn clue what goes on in the Egyptian military, thus we have no idea which way this will go.