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- MATT BRADLEY
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- TAMER EL-GHOBASHY
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- CHARLES LEVINSON
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At least 42 people were killed and 332 injured in a gunfight between soldiers and supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi. Matt Bradley reports on the conflict between Egyptian secularists and Islamists. Photo: Getty Images
CAIRO—At least 51 people were killed and 435 were injured in a gunfight between soldiers and supporters of ousted president Mohammed Morsi that sharply raised the temperature in the brewing conflict between Egyptian secularists and Islamists.
A top muslim cleric warns of impending civil war in Egypt as the gunfight between soldiers and supporters of ousted president Mohammed Morsi sharply raises the stakes in the brewing conflict between Egyptian secularists and Islamists. Charles Levinson reports.
In statements issued immediately after Monday's attack, the Muslim Brotherhood, which backed Mr. Morsi, said soldiers opened fire with live ammunition on pro-Morsi protesters as they performed the dawn prayer outside the Republican Guard Club in Cairo. The group called the killings a "massacre" and called on its followers to launch an "uprising" against "those who stole the revolution"—a thinly veiled reference to Egypt's military.
Military spokesmen told the Associated Press that gunmen opened fire on troops, killing at least five supporters of Mr. Morsi and one officer. The different accounts couldn't be reconciled.
The death toll was reported by Egypt's state television. At least one soldier was killed in the skirmish, according to Mena, Egypt's state news agency.
Jilted by a popular military coup that ousted Mr. Morsi from his office five days ago, the Brotherhood has been holding regular protests outside the Republican Guard Club, where Mr. Morsi is thought to be held.
The past two weeks have seen massive protests aimed at toppling Mr. Morsi, counter protests demanding his reinstatement and isolated clashes between the former president's secular opponents and his Islamist backers.
Both sides of the conflict grappled to identify themselves as the victims of Monday's shootings. The Brotherhood emailed links to YouTube videos that showed civilian victims being carried away from the scene of the shooting in the predawn darkness. Egyptian state television ran footage that showed civilians firing handguns at soldiers and police officers while claiming that the soldiers in front of the Republican Guard Club had acted in self-defense.
As Egyptians awoke on Monday, the early morning violence was already damaging the military-backed government's claims that last week's coup answered to the unified wishes of the Egyptian public. The spokesman for the Nour Party, which represents Salafi Islamist politicians and was the only Islamist group to back the military coup, announced on his Facebook page Monday morning that it was pulling out of negotiations over a new government in protest over the killings.
"We will not be silent on the massacre at the Republican Guard today," said Nadar al Bakkar. "We wanted to stop the bloodshed, but now the blood is being shed in rivers. We withdraw from all talks with the new government."
Immediately after the violence, two soldiers were kidnapped in the Ain Shams neighborhood of Cairo, according to Egyptian state radio.
Adly Mansour, Egypt's new interim president who was installed after a military coup last week, announced that he would form a judicial committee to investigate Monday's killings, state TV reported.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the leader of Egypt's opposition who was appointed vice president on Sunday night, said in a tweet Monday morning: "Violence begets violence and should be strongly condemned. Independent investigation a must. Peaceful transition is only way."
The head of Al Azhar, one of the world's oldest universities and a center of Sunni religious learning, called for reconciliation and dialogue, an end to violence and the release of prisoners. Sheikh Ahmed Tayyeb warned of an impending civil war, and said he would go into seclusion until the crisis was resolved.
ReutersMembers of the Muslim Brotherhood and supporters of deposed Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi shout slogans in front of army soldiers at Republican Guard headquarters in a Cairo suburb Monday.
European Union spokesman Michael Mann expressed the 28-nation bloc's "great concern" over the alleged attack. He said EU officials are still trying to ascertain the facts of what happened, and that the bloc condemns and regrets the use of violence.
U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague said, "All sides of the political spectrum should work together for the sake of the country's political and economic future."
"It is for the Egyptian people to chart a way forward. However in our view this should include a path to free and fair elections in which all parties can compete, the release of political leaders and journalists, and work to agree a constitution," he said.
Some EU foreign ministers, such as Sweden's Carl Bildt, have criticized what they described as the army's intervention in the constitutional process.
"Situation in Egypt is deteriorating. Legitimate institutions and true reconciliation the way to avoid an even deeper crisis," Mr. Bildt said Monday on Twitter.
By late morning, calm had been restored in the area of the alleged attack at the Republican Guard Club. Stunned witnesses and survivors milled around Raba'a Mosque, some desperate to give testimony, others seeking counseling from imams.
The witnesses and survivors said the alleged attack began at about 3:30 a.m., as the protesters wrapped up the dawn prayer. The first indication of trouble came in the form of loud metallic banging that civilian security committees use to warn of danger.
"We heard the banging and the imam leading the prayer sped it up—then it was chaos," said Ayad Sayed, a 30-year-old ceramics worker who wore a bandage around his torso and spoke haltingly due to birdshot wounds to his back and chest.
Witnesses said tear gas came first and was followed by gun shots and birdshot.
Omar Gamal, a 25-year-old accountant who was manning a civilian security checkpoint with friends from the Cairo neighborhood of Shubra, said he first sensed something was amiss when the street lamps illuminating the large boulevard shut off.
Moments later, he said, four state security armored personal carriers bore down on him and his colleagues and stopped just short of where they were standing. Volleys of tear gas followed, scattering Mr. Gamal's friends.
"We ran back further and then came the live fire, guns and birdshot," he said, adding that he had escaped to a side street. He said four of his committee members were seriously injured, five were arrested and three remain missing.
According to the witnesses, the protesters scattered as best they could but some were caught by soldiers and state security officers and beaten.
Mohamed Marzouk, 40, said that as he attempted to flee he saw people collapse around him, presumably from gunshot wounds. He escaped into a building and onto its roof where he began take cellphone video footage. The video, which he showed to a Wall Street Journal reporter, depicts a group of uniformed soldiers beating two men with batons as they lay prone.
"They didn't give us a chance, not a warning. We were on our knees praying," said Mr. Marzouk, a chicken vendor.
El Hassan Ahmed, an emergency room doctor from Kasr el Aini Hospital who was working at a field hospital at the Raba'a Mosque when the injured came in, said he treated "a variety of injuries" from large caliber bullet wounds to blunt impact trauma from batons and boots.
He said the patients ranged in age from a 10-month-old child to a 65-year-old man.
"We did first aid and emergency care while we waited for ambulances to transport the most critical injuries to the hospital," he said. "It was a brutal attack. Not just the bullets. One patient had boot marks on his clothing and bone fractures."
Zenab Shehata, 50, bristled at the suggestion that the protesters had provoked an attack or shot at the soldiers guarding the club.
"We didn't have anything but the bottles of water by our side," she said, her voice rising to a scream as she spoke.
—Reem Abdellatif in Cairo and Laurence Norman in Brussels contributed to this article.Write to Matt Bradley at [email protected], Tamer El-Ghobashy at [email protected] and Charles Levinson at [email protected]
