The attack, the third mass killing
of Islamist demonstrators since
the military ousted
Mr. Morsi six weeks ago,
followed a series of government threats.
But the scale — lasting more than 12
hours,
with armored vehicles, bulldozers, tear gas, birdshot, live ammunition
with armored vehicles, bulldozers, tear gas, birdshot, live ammunition
and snipers — and the ferocity
far exceeded the Interior Ministry’s
promises
of a gradual and measured dispersal.
At least one protester was incinerated in his tent.
Many others were shot
in the head or chest,
including some who
appeared to be in their early teens
including
the 17-year-old daughter
of a prominent Islamist leader,
Mohamed el-Beltagy.
At a makeshift morgue
in one field hospital
on
Wednesday morning,
the number of bodies grew to 12 from 3
in the space of 15 minutes.
“Martyrs, this way,”
a medic called out
to direct the men bringing new stretchers;
the hems of women’s abayas
were stained from the pools of blood
covering the floor.
Adli Mansour,
the figurehead
president appointed
by Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Size,
declared a state of emergency,
declared a state of emergency,
removing any limits on police action
and returning Egypt
to the state of virtual martial law
that prevailed for three decades
under President Hosni Mubarak.
The government imposed a 7 p.m
. curfew in most of the country,
closed the banks and shut down all north-south train
service.
The Muslim Brotherhood,
the main Islamist group behind Mr.
Morsi,
reiterated its rejection of violence
reiterated its rejection of violence
but called on Egyptians across the
country to rise up
in protest,
and its supporters marched toward
the camps to battle the police with rocks and
firebombs.
Clashes and gunfire broke out even
in well-heeled precincts of the capital far
from the protest camps,
leaving anxious residents huddled in
their homes
and the streets all but emptied of
life.
Angry Islamists attacked
at least a dozen police stations
around the country,
according to the state news media,
killing more than 40 police
officers.
And they lashed out at Christians,
attacking or burning seven churches,
according to the interior minister.
Coptic Christian and human rights
groups
said the number was far higher.
The crackdown followed six weeks
of attempts by Western diplomats to
broker
a political resolution that might
persuade the Islamists to abandon
their protests
and rejoin a renewed democratic process
despite the military’s removal of Mr. Morsi,
despite the military’s removal of Mr. Morsi,
Egypt’s first freely elected
president.
But the brutality of the attack seemed
to extinguish any such hopes.
The Health Ministry said
that 235 civilians had been killed
and more than a thousand others had
been wounded across Egypt.
But the rate of dead
and seriously injured people moving
through the field hospitals
at the sit-ins seemed to promise
the true numbers
would be much higher.
The assault prompted
the resignation of the interim vice president,
Mohamed ElBaradei, a
Nobel Prize-winning
former diplomat who
had lent his reputation
to selling the West on the democratic goals
of the military
takeover.
“We have reached a state of harder polarization
and more dangerous
division,
with the social fabric in danger of tearing,
because violence only
begets violence,”
Mr. El Baradei wrote
in a public letter
to the president.
“The beneficiaries
of what happened
today are the preachers
of violence and
terrorism,
the most extremist groups,” he said,
“and you will
remember what I am telling you.”
The violence was almost universally
criticized by Western
governments.
A spokesman for President Obama
said the United States was continuing
to review the $1.5 billion in aid it gives Egypt
to review the $1.5 billion in aid it gives Egypt
annually,
most of which goes to the military.
The spokesman, Josh Earnest,
said the violence
“runs directly counter
to pledges from the interim
government to pursue reconciliation” with the
Islamists.
He said the United States condemned the renewal
of the emergency law and urged respect for basic rights
like the freedom of assembly and peaceful demonstrations.
But he stopped short
of writing
off the interim government, saying the United
States would continue
to remind Egypt’s leaders
of their promises and urge them “to get back on track.”
Analysts said the attack was the
clearest sign
yet that the Egyptian police state was re-emerging
in full force, overriding liberal cabinet
officials
like
Mr. ElBaradei and ignoring Western
diplomatic pressure and talk of cutting financial aid.
diplomatic pressure and talk of cutting financial aid.
“This is the beginning of a systematic
crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood,
other Islamists and other opponents
of a military coup,”
said Emad Shahin, a professor of political science
at the American
University in Cairo.
“In the end,” he added, “the West will back the winning
side.”
The attack began about 7 a.m
. when a circle of police officers began
firing tear gas at
the protest camps
and obliterating tents with bulldozers.
Although the Interior Ministry
had said it would
move only gradually
and leave a safe exit, soon after the attack
began several
thousand people appeared
trapped inside the main camp,
near the Rabaa
al-Adawiya mosque,
as snipers fired down
on those trying to flee
and riot police
officers with tear gas
and birdshot closed in from all sides.
“There is no safe passage,”
said Mohamed Abdel Azeem, 25, a wholesaler,
who had braved sniper fire
to reach a field hospital.
For a time in the late afternoon,
the
Islamists succeeded in pushing the
police back far enough to create
an almost safe passage
to a hospital building
On the edge of what
On the edge of what
remained of their camp.
Only a roughly 20-yard stretch
in front of the hospital doors
was still vulnerable to sniper fire
from above,
was still vulnerable to sniper fire
from above,
and
a series of Islamist
marchers from around
the city flowed
back into the
encampment bolstering
its numbers.
But shortly before
soldiers and police officers
renewed their push,
and the Islamists
were forced at last to flee.
Three journalists were reportedly
killed in the
fighting:
a cameraman for Sky News,
the
Britain-based news network;
a reporter for a newspaper
based
in the United Arab Emirates;
and a reporter
for an Egyptian state newspaper.
for an Egyptian state newspaper.
Several others were arrested.
Egyptian state news
media played down the violence,
reporting that the police were
C
L
E
A
R
I
N
G
the camps
“in a highly civilized way.”
In a televised address,
Mohamed Ibrahim, interior minister
under Mr. Morsi and now under the
new government,
said his forces “insisted on maintaining the
highest degrees of self-restraint.”
Later, state television showed
footage of a group of dead bodies
it said were discovered under the main stage
of the Islamist sit-in, corroborating dark rumors in
the anti-Islamist news media.
But it appeared to be a gruesome
setup:
journalists, including a reporter for The New York Times,
had visited the area below the stage
repeatedly in recent days and found
it empty, without any bodies.
Although
journalists
saw
at least a few Islamists
with guns on Wednesday,
there
was also no evidence
that
the Islamists had stockpiled large numbers of
w
e
a
p
o
n
s
inside
the camp,
as
Egyptian state news media
had
said before the attack.
But
in a televised statement,
Hazem
el-Beblawi, the interim prime minister
and
a Western-trained economist
who had been considered a liberal,
cited the Islamists’ supposed stockpiling
of
weapons and ammunition to argue
that the use of force was justified to protect
the
rights of other citizens.
“Things were
spiraling out of
control, and we decided
to take a firm stance,” he said.
By nightfall the
Islamists had established new sit-ins
outside a
landmark
mosque in Cairo
and others in cities around the country,
defying the new curfew
and the interior minister’s vows to break up
any such assemblies.
“Is this closer
to being resolved
tonight than
last night?”
asked Michael
Wahid Hanna, a researcher on Egypt
with the New York-based Century Foundation who
was visiting Cairo.
“Obviously not.
I don’t think anybody has thought this through fully.”
Mayy El Sheikh
contributed
reporting from Cairo,
and Alan Cowel
from London.
