CAIRO,
Oct 10 (Reuters) - In Hosni Mubarak's final days in office in 2011, the
world's gaze focused on Cairo, where hundreds of thousands of
protesters demanded the resignation of one of the Arab world's longest
serving autocrats.
Little attention was
paid when a group of Muslim Brotherhood leaders broke free from their
cells in a prison in the far off Wadi el-Natroun desert. But the
incident, which triggered a series of prison breaks by members of the
Islamist group around the country, caused panic among police officers
fast losing their grip on Egypt.
One
officer pleaded with his comrades for help as his police station was
torched. "I am faced with more than 2,000 people and I am dealing with
them alone in Dar al Salam, please hurry," the policeman radioed to
colleagues as trouble spread. "Now they have machine guns, the youth are
firing machine guns at me, send me reinforcements."
In
all, 200 policemen and security officers were killed that day, Jan 28,
called the Friday of Rage by anti-Mubarak demonstrators. Some had their
throats slit. One of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders to escape was
Mohamed Mursi, who would become president the following year.
Egypt's
Interior Ministry, which controls all of the country's police forces
including state security and riot police, never forgot the chaos. In
particular the Wadi el-Natroun prison break became a powerful symbol
inside the security apparatus of its lost power. Officers swore revenge
on the Brotherhood and Mursi, according to security officials.
When
army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi appeared on television in July this
year to announce the end of Mursi's presidency and plans for elections,
it was widely assumed that Egypt's military leaders were the prime
movers behind the country's counter revolution. But dozens of interviews
with officials from the army, state security and police, as well as
diplomats and politicians, show the Interior Ministry was the key force
behind removing Egypt's first democratically elected president.
Senior
officials in the Interior Ministry's General Intelligence Service
identified young activists unhappy with Mursi's rule, according to four
Interior Ministry sources, who like most people interviewed for this
story, asked to remain anonymous. The intelligence officials met with
the activists, who told them they thought the army and Interior Ministry
were "handing the country to the Brotherhood."
The
intelligence officials advised the activists to take to the streets and
challenge Mursi, who many felt had given himself sweeping powers and
was mismanaging the economy, allegations he has denied. Six weeks later,
a youth movement called Tamarud - "rebellion" in Arabic - began a
petition calling for Mursi to step down.
Though
that group's leaders were not among the youth who met the intelligence
officials, they enjoyed the support of the Interior Ministry, according
to the Interior Ministry sources. Ministry officials and police officers
helped collect signatures for the petition, helped distribute the
petitions, signed the petition themselves, and joined the protests.
"They
are Egyptians like us and we were all upset by the Brotherhood and
their horrible rule," said a 23-year-old woman in the Tamarud movement
who asked not to be named.
For the
Interior Ministry, Tamarud offered a chance to avenge Wadi el-Natroun;
the reversal of fortunes has been remarkable. The state security force,
both feared and despised during Mubarak's 30-year rule, has not only
regained control of the country two and half years after losing power,
but has won broad public support by staging one of the fiercest
crackdowns on the Muslim Brotherhood in years.
The
interior minister openly speaks of restoring the kind of security seen
under Mubarak. A renewed confidence permeates the police force, whose
reputation for brutality helped fuel the 2011 uprising. Egyptians now
lionise the police. Television stations praise the Interior Ministry and
the army, depicting them as heroes and saviours of the country.
The
Interior Ministry's most dreaded unit, the Political Security Unit, has
been revived to deal with the Brotherhood. Under Mubarak, officers in
that department were notorious for treating citizens with a heavy hand
and intruding into their lives. When activists broke into the agency's
premises shortly after Mubarak was forced to quit on Feb. 11, 2011, they
found and posted online documents, videos and pictures of what they
described as a torture chamber with a blood-stained floor and equipped
with chains.
The interior ministry has apologised for "violations" in the past and has said they will not be repeated.
Key
to the turnaround has been the Interior Ministry's ability to forge
much closer ties to the army, the most powerful and respected
institution in Egypt. It was a tactic that began almost as soon as
Mubarak stepped down.
FUMING SILENTLY
Weeks
after Mubarak was overthrown, the Interior Ministry called a meeting at
the police academy in Cairo. The gathering, headed by the interior
minister and senior security officials, was the first in a series that
discussed how to handle the Brotherhood, according to two policemen who
attended some of the gatherings.
Thousands
of mid- and lower-ranking officers were angry and said they could not
serve under a president they regarded as a terrorist. Senior officers
tried to calm them, arguing that the men needed to wait for the right
moment to move against Mursi. "We tried to reassure them but the message
did not get through," said a senior police official. "They just fumed
silently."
The senior state security
officer told Reuters there were no explicit orders to disobey Mursi but
that a large number of officers decided they would not be "tools" for
the Brotherhood.
"I worked during Mursi's
time. I never failed to show up at any mission. This included securing
his convoys. Yet I never felt I was doing it from the heart," said one
major in state security.
"It was hard to
feel that you are doing a national job for your country while what you
are really doing was securing a terrorist."
Resentment
grew when Mursi pardoned 17 Islamist militants held since the 1990s for
attacks on soldiers and policemen. One of the militants had killed
dozens of policemen in an attack in the Sinai. None of them publicly
denied the charges or even commented on them.
Mursi's
decision last November to grant himself sweeping powers triggered a
wave of public protest. On Dec. 5, protesters rallied in front of the
Ittihadiya, the main presidential palace in Cairo. As the crowd grew,
Mursi ordered security forces to disperse them. They refused. A senior
security officer said there was no explicit order to disobey Mursi but
they all acted "according to their conscience."
The
Muslim Brotherhood brought in its own forces to try and quell the
unrest and Brotherhood supporters tried to hand some protesters to
police to be arrested. But the police refused, Brotherhood officials
said at the time.
"Do they think the police forgot? Our colleagues are in jail because of the Brotherhood," said a state security officer.
Ten
people were killed in the ensuing clashes, most of them Brotherhood
supporters. Liberal activists accused Brotherhood members of beating and
torturing anti-Mursi protesters.
Mursi
miscalculated further by calling off a meeting sought by the army to
discuss how to calm the storm, according to two army sources.
"It
was a veiled message to stay out of politics, and we got it, as we
understood that Mursi was an elected leader and (it) would be hard to
defy that," said an army colonel. "But it was clear by then where his
rule was driving the state."
"CONSTANT FIGHTS"
In
January 2013, Mursi fired Ahmed Gamal, former senior state security
officer, as interior minister and replaced him with Mohamed Ibrahim who
was the senior-most official with the least exposure to the
anti-Brotherhood factions inside the ministry, security sources said.
Ibrahim was seen as weaker and more malleable than Gamal, who was blamed
by the Brotherhood for not acting harshly enough against anti-Mursi
protests.
But appointing Ibrahim, who was
previously an assistant to the interior minister for prison affairs,
proved to be a costly mistake. He moved to get close to the army,
attending events to establish direct contact with army chief Sisi and
regularly complimenting the general on his management techniques, said
the police major.
Sisi had served as head
of military intelligence under Mubarak. He was known to be religious and
had the charisma to inspire younger army officers. Mursi believed those
younger officers posed less of a threat than the old generals who had
served under Mubarak and whom he fired in August 2012, two months after
he took office.
But the country's police chiefs had one message for the military: The Brotherhood is bad news.
"We
are in constant fights on the streets. This made us tougher than the
army and ruthless," said the police major. "We don't understand the
language of negotiating with terrorists. We wanted to handle them from
day one."
Ibrahim rejected requests by
Reuters for an interview and would not answer questions sent by email.
Sisi could not be reached for comment.
By
early 2013, army officers and Interior Ministry officials had begun
meeting in the military's lavish social and sports clubs, some of which
overlook the Nile. Over lunch or steak dinners, officials would discuss
the Brotherhood and Egypt's future, according to senior state security
officers and army officers who took part in the meetings.
The
Interior Ministry argued that the Brotherhood was a threat to national
security and had to go, according to one senior security officer. In the
1990s, during the Interior Ministry's battle with the Muslim
Brotherhood, the ministry had referred to all Islamists as terrorists.
It urged the army to adopt the same terminology.
"I
have gone to some of those meetings with the army and we spoke a lot
about the Muslim Brotherhood. We had more experience with them then the
army. We shared those experiences and the army became more and more
convinced that those people have to go and are bad for Egypt," the
senior security officer said.
"The army
like many people who have not dealt directly with the Brotherhood and
seen their dirtiness wanted to believe that they have something to offer
to Egypt. But for us it was a waste of time."
Officials
in the Interior Ministry warned the military that Mursi's manoeuverings
were merely a way to shore up his power. The Muslim Brotherhood, they
told their army colleagues, was more interested in creating an Islamic
caliphate across the region than serving Egypt.
"The
Brotherhood have a problem with the Egyptian state," said the state
security officer. "I am certain that Mursi came to implement the plan of
the Brotherhood ... They don't believe in the nation of Egypt to begin
with."
Over time, middle-ranking Interior
Ministry officers became more vocal with the military. The message got
through at the highest level. Early this year, army chief Sisi warned
Mursi that his government would not last.
"I
told Mursi in February you failed and your project is finished," Sisi
was quoted as saying in an interview published this month in the
newspaper al-Masry al-Youm.
Interior
Ministry officials believed that the Brotherhood planned to restructure
the ministry, one state security officer said. Concerned officials
discussed the issue in a private meeting in the parliament. One option
was the cancellation of the police academy. Many saw that as a threat to
their institution and careers.
"The news
became known to young officers. This action is against the interest of
the officers. He was fighting their future," said the state security
officer.
Muslim Brotherhood officials have
denied plotting against the Interior Ministry and say there were no
plans to dismantle the police academy. They have previously accused
Interior Ministry officials of working to undermine the government,
refusing to protect Brotherhood leaders, and trying to turn the public
against the group's rule.
"We cooperated
with the Interior Ministry all along. We never had plans to undermine it
or the police academy. It was the Interior Ministry that refused to
work with us," said Brotherhood official Kamal Fahim. "All along they
resisted us and tried to turn Egyptians against us."
"DOWN, DOWN"
Pressure from the Interior Ministry on Sisi and the military grew, helped by the emergence in May of the Tamarud.
At
first the group was not taken seriously. But as it gathered signatures,
Egyptians who had lost faith in Mursi took notice, including Interior
Ministry officials. Some of those officials and police officers helped
collect signatures and joined the protests.
"Of
course we joined and helped the movement, as we are Egyptians like them
and everyone else. Everyone saw that the whole Mursi phenomena is not
working for Egypt and everyone from his place did what they can to
remove this man and group," said a security official.
"The
only difference was that the police and state security saw the end
right from the start but the rest of the Egyptians did not and had to
experience one year of their failed rule to agree with us."
On
June 15, the Interior Ministry held a meeting of 3,000 officers,
including generals and lieutenants, at its social club in the Medinat
Nasr district of Cairo to discuss the death of a police officer killed
by militants in Sinai. Islamist militancy in Sinai, mainly targeting
police and army officers, had risen sharply after Mursi's election.
Some at the meeting blamed "terrorist elements ... released by Mohamed Mursi," said the state security officer.
Police
officers started chanting "Down, down with the rule of the General
Guide," a reference to Muslim Brotherhood General Guide Mohamed Badie,
now in jail on charges of inciting violence during the the Ittihadiya
protests.
On June 30 - the anniversary of
Mursi's first year in office - angry Interior Ministry officers joined
Tamarud members and millions of other Egyptians to demand the
president's resignation. Four days later, Sisi appeared on television
and announced what amounted to a military takeover. Some security
officials called the move "the revolution of the state."
TEARGAS, BULLETS AND BULLDOZERS
For
weeks after Mursi's overthrow, Western officials tried to persuade Sisi
to refrain from using force to break up Brotherhood protest camps in
Cairo. But the hardline Interior Ministry, which had quickly regained
its old swagger, pressed for a crackdown. Police officials argued that
Brotherhood members had weapons.
"For us,
negotiations were a waste of time," said the state security major. "We
know what was coming: terrorism. And now after this horrible experience I
think everyone learned a lesson and appreciates us and that we were
right about those people."
Early on the
morning of Aug. 14 policemen in black uniforms and hoods stormed the
Rabaa al-Adawiya camp, one of two main vigils of Brotherhood supporters
in Cairo.
The police ignored a plan by the
army-backed cabinet to issue warnings and use water cannons to disperse
protesters, instead using teargas, bullets and bulldozers. Hundreds
died there and many more died in clashes that erupted across the country
after the raid.
Army officers later asked
the police why the death toll was so high, according to a military
source. The interior minister said his forces were fired on first.
"It
is one thing for decisions to be taken by officials in suits and
sitting in air-conditioned rooms," said a state security officer in
charge of some top Brotherhood cases. "But we as troops on the ground
knew that this decision can never be implemented when dealing with
anything related to this terrorist organisation. Force had to be used
and that can never be avoided with those people."
Despite the use of force and the deaths, liberal Egyptians who had risen up against Mubarak seemed sanguine.
The
liberal National Salvation Front (NSF) alliance praised the actions of
security forces. "Today Egypt raised its head up high," said the NSF in a
statement after the raid. "The National Salvation Front salutes the
police and army forces."
Two years after
the Wadi el-Natroun prison break, the Interior Ministry had power again.
It announced it would use live ammunition when dealing with protesters
it accused of "scaring citizens." Trucks used by the once-dreaded
anti-riot security forces now have signs on them which read "The
People's Police."
The government has
jailed the Brotherhood's top leaders in a bid to crush Egypt's oldest
Islamist movement. Muslim Brotherhood officials now face trial in
connection with the Ittihadiya protests.
Senior
security officers say their suspicions about the Brotherhood were
confirmed in documents they found when they raided the group's
headquarters. The documents suggested that Mursi planned to dismantle
the army under the guise of restructuring, they said. One of the
documents, which a state security officer showed to Reuters, calls for
the building of an Islamic state "in any eligible spot."
Muslim Brotherhood leaders could not be reached to comment on this document because most of them are either in jail or hiding.
Police
officials say they no longer abuse Egyptians and have learned from
their mistakes under Mubarak. But not everyone is buying that line.
Muslim
Brotherhood leader Murad Ali, who was recently imprisoned, wrote in a
letter smuggled out of prison and seen by Reuters that he was put in a
foul-smelling, darkened cell on death row and forced to sleep on a
concrete floor. Lawyers for other Brotherhood members say prisoners are
crammed into small cells and face psychological abuse. One elderly
Brotherhood prisoner said guards shaved his head and brought vicious
dogs around to scare him, inmates near his cell told Reuters.
There
were no complaints of the type of whipping or electrocution seen in
Mubarak's days. But Brotherhood members say the current crackdown is
more intense. "The pressure never subsides. None of my Brotherhood
colleagues sleep at the same place for too long and neither do I," said
Waleed Ali, a lawyer who acts for the Brotherhood. (Writing by Michael
Georgy; Edited by Richard Woods and Simon Robinson)
