EL ARISH, Egypt — President Mohamed Morsi fired his intelligence chief on Wednesday and asked his defense minister to replace the commander of Egypt’s military police, upending Egypt’s security apparatus in response to the killings of 16 soldiers at a checkpoint near Egypt’s border with Israel.
According to his spokesman, Mr. Morsi also appointed a new head of his presidential guard. And he fired the governor of North Sinai, the province where the attack on the soldiers — the deadliest on Egypt’s military in decades — took place on Sunday.
The moves amounted to a bold attempt by Mr. Morsi to assert the power of his office, encroached on by the generals who took power after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, and to quiet critics who had accused him of reacting timidly to the crisis.
The governor, Sayyid Abdul Wahab Mabrouk, apparently received the news in the middle of a public event, as he was preparing to help open a police station in the town of Sheikh Zowayed that had been closed since last year, when it was set on fire during the Egyptian uprising.
His car, which had pulled up outside the police station, abruptly left as the ceremony was about to get under way.
The shake-up came as Egypt’s military made a show of force in the troubled Sinai region, sending troops and armored carriers through towns and villages. Helicopters fired on unknown targets, in the first airstrikes by Egypt’s military in the region in decades. Witnesses reported sporadic heavy clashes, and said the airstrikes appeared to have hit several cars, thought it was not clear whether anyone was in the vehicles.
Egyptian security officials have blamed the attack on militants in the Sinai, who have grown in numbers since the Egyptian uprising, when local security officials largely disappeared from the region. They also blamed militants from the Gaza Strip, saying they participated in both the attack on the soldiers and in a subsequent attempt by the gunmen to storm the Israeli border, using vehicles stolen from the checkpoint.
Security officials leaked reports to state media saying that 20 militants had been killed during the operation, but there was no corroboration of that tally from residents in the towns where the patrols occurred.
A smuggler in Rafah, on the Egyptian side of the Gaza Strip border, said Egyptian security agents had requested that he close tunnels on his property that connect to Gaza. The smuggler, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Ismael, said he had complied with the request, in part because he did not believe that the Egyptian authorities would enforce the closures for very long.
Bulldozer tracks marked his garden, running through the red dirt he had used to cover a tunnel.
The airstrikes by the Egyptian military early Wednesday followed renewed violence in the northern Sinai Peninsula on Tuesday night, when, at around 11 p.m. in what appeared to be a series of coordinated assaults, gunmen fired on at least seven government checkpoints as well as a military cement factory, according to security officials. At least two people were injured in the attacks, the officials said.
On Tuesday, President Morsi abruptly canceled plans to attend the funeral of the 16 soldiers after protesters shouting anti-Muslim Brotherhood slogans chased the country’s prime minister from an earlier prayer service.
“You killed them, you dogs,” the protesters shouted at the prime minister, Hesham Qandil, state news media reported. Mr. Qandil is not a member of the Brotherhood, though some people in Cairo — especially critics of the Islamist group — say he is ideologically close to it. Pictures from the ceremony showed Mr. Qandil surrounded by security guards as protesters waving shoes pursued him.
A sign carried by a protester read, “This funeral is for Egyptians, not the Brotherhood and their president.”
Mr. Morsi’s absence from the funeral on Tuesday left his defense minister, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, as the most senior official in attendance, shown on television walking behind the coffins, draped with flags. Though the number of hecklers was reportedly small, Mr. Morsi’s decision to stay away was a reminder of the challenges he faces as the country’s first Islamist leader navigating Egypt’s deeply polarized politics.
The killings of the soldiers, which represented Mr. Morsi’s first real crisis, have aggravated the political clash between the Brotherhood, on one side, and its more secular rivals, including Egypt’s powerful military leaders. “The same lines of division exist,” said Mustapha Kamel el-Sayyid, a political science professor at Cairo University. “People are making new arguments.”
The president’s latest vulnerability stems from his closeness with Hamas, an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood that governs the Gaza Strip. Mr. Morsi had promised to ease restrictions on Gaza by opening the border crossing and allowing goods, now smuggled, to pass through the border.
After the attack, some of Mr. Morsi’s critics cast his relationship with the group as a liability. Security officials have said that Palestinians played some role in the attack on the soldiers, who were killed on Sunday when 35 gunmen stormed their checkpoint, spraying the soldiers with machine gun fire.
After the attack on the checkpoint, the militants commandeered military vehicles and tried to storm the nearby Israeli border. The Egyptian military said Palestinians firing mortars from the Gaza Strip joined in the assault.
“It is very embarrassing for Dr. Morsi,” said Mr. Sayyid. “This could be seen as the present the Palestinians gave him after he offered some measure of assistance.” Mr. Sayyid added that such criticism was unfair and ignored the security lapses by the government.
Still, some of Mr. Morsi’s detractors seized on the attack to raise questions about the president’s positions. Emad Gad, a former member of Parliament who is a critic of Mr. Morsi, said in an interview with the semiofficial Al Ahram newspaper that the president’s “statements regarding not having a border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip is what made the terrorist cell dare to conduct these operations.”
Despite the accusations, the Egyptian authorities have provided no information about the identities of the attackers, though they have said an intense manhunt is under way. And though attention has recently been focused on the smuggling tunnels, many analysts here said the Sinai itself was a more pressing source of concern as a place where militancy had taken hold after years of neglect by the government and heavy-handed treatment by the security services.
On Tuesday evening, there were indications that the country’s political forces were trying to tamp down the statements against the Brotherhood. In a joint statement, several political parties, including the Brotherhood’s political wing, called for long-term development in the Sinai, and recommended better coordination with the Palestinians.
Mr. Morsi’s spokesman, Yasser Ali, explained later that the president, who visited four injured soldiers in a military hospital, had not wanted to interfere with the public’s ability to attend the ceremony. “It was also tense,” he said. “We all realize the magnitude of the sadness, so the president preferred not to come.”
Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting from El Arish, and Alan Cowell from London.
According to his spokesman, Mr. Morsi also appointed a new head of his presidential guard. And he fired the governor of North Sinai, the province where the attack on the soldiers — the deadliest on Egypt’s military in decades — took place on Sunday.
The moves amounted to a bold attempt by Mr. Morsi to assert the power of his office, encroached on by the generals who took power after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, and to quiet critics who had accused him of reacting timidly to the crisis.
The governor, Sayyid Abdul Wahab Mabrouk, apparently received the news in the middle of a public event, as he was preparing to help open a police station in the town of Sheikh Zowayed that had been closed since last year, when it was set on fire during the Egyptian uprising.
His car, which had pulled up outside the police station, abruptly left as the ceremony was about to get under way.
The shake-up came as Egypt’s military made a show of force in the troubled Sinai region, sending troops and armored carriers through towns and villages. Helicopters fired on unknown targets, in the first airstrikes by Egypt’s military in the region in decades. Witnesses reported sporadic heavy clashes, and said the airstrikes appeared to have hit several cars, thought it was not clear whether anyone was in the vehicles.
Egyptian security officials have blamed the attack on militants in the Sinai, who have grown in numbers since the Egyptian uprising, when local security officials largely disappeared from the region. They also blamed militants from the Gaza Strip, saying they participated in both the attack on the soldiers and in a subsequent attempt by the gunmen to storm the Israeli border, using vehicles stolen from the checkpoint.
Security officials leaked reports to state media saying that 20 militants had been killed during the operation, but there was no corroboration of that tally from residents in the towns where the patrols occurred.
A smuggler in Rafah, on the Egyptian side of the Gaza Strip border, said Egyptian security agents had requested that he close tunnels on his property that connect to Gaza. The smuggler, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Ismael, said he had complied with the request, in part because he did not believe that the Egyptian authorities would enforce the closures for very long.
Bulldozer tracks marked his garden, running through the red dirt he had used to cover a tunnel.
The airstrikes by the Egyptian military early Wednesday followed renewed violence in the northern Sinai Peninsula on Tuesday night, when, at around 11 p.m. in what appeared to be a series of coordinated assaults, gunmen fired on at least seven government checkpoints as well as a military cement factory, according to security officials. At least two people were injured in the attacks, the officials said.
On Tuesday, President Morsi abruptly canceled plans to attend the funeral of the 16 soldiers after protesters shouting anti-Muslim Brotherhood slogans chased the country’s prime minister from an earlier prayer service.
“You killed them, you dogs,” the protesters shouted at the prime minister, Hesham Qandil, state news media reported. Mr. Qandil is not a member of the Brotherhood, though some people in Cairo — especially critics of the Islamist group — say he is ideologically close to it. Pictures from the ceremony showed Mr. Qandil surrounded by security guards as protesters waving shoes pursued him.
A sign carried by a protester read, “This funeral is for Egyptians, not the Brotherhood and their president.”
Mr. Morsi’s absence from the funeral on Tuesday left his defense minister, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, as the most senior official in attendance, shown on television walking behind the coffins, draped with flags. Though the number of hecklers was reportedly small, Mr. Morsi’s decision to stay away was a reminder of the challenges he faces as the country’s first Islamist leader navigating Egypt’s deeply polarized politics.
The killings of the soldiers, which represented Mr. Morsi’s first real crisis, have aggravated the political clash between the Brotherhood, on one side, and its more secular rivals, including Egypt’s powerful military leaders. “The same lines of division exist,” said Mustapha Kamel el-Sayyid, a political science professor at Cairo University. “People are making new arguments.”
The president’s latest vulnerability stems from his closeness with Hamas, an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood that governs the Gaza Strip. Mr. Morsi had promised to ease restrictions on Gaza by opening the border crossing and allowing goods, now smuggled, to pass through the border.
After the attack, some of Mr. Morsi’s critics cast his relationship with the group as a liability. Security officials have said that Palestinians played some role in the attack on the soldiers, who were killed on Sunday when 35 gunmen stormed their checkpoint, spraying the soldiers with machine gun fire.
After the attack on the checkpoint, the militants commandeered military vehicles and tried to storm the nearby Israeli border. The Egyptian military said Palestinians firing mortars from the Gaza Strip joined in the assault.
“It is very embarrassing for Dr. Morsi,” said Mr. Sayyid. “This could be seen as the present the Palestinians gave him after he offered some measure of assistance.” Mr. Sayyid added that such criticism was unfair and ignored the security lapses by the government.
Still, some of Mr. Morsi’s detractors seized on the attack to raise questions about the president’s positions. Emad Gad, a former member of Parliament who is a critic of Mr. Morsi, said in an interview with the semiofficial Al Ahram newspaper that the president’s “statements regarding not having a border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip is what made the terrorist cell dare to conduct these operations.”
Despite the accusations, the Egyptian authorities have provided no information about the identities of the attackers, though they have said an intense manhunt is under way. And though attention has recently been focused on the smuggling tunnels, many analysts here said the Sinai itself was a more pressing source of concern as a place where militancy had taken hold after years of neglect by the government and heavy-handed treatment by the security services.
On Tuesday evening, there were indications that the country’s political forces were trying to tamp down the statements against the Brotherhood. In a joint statement, several political parties, including the Brotherhood’s political wing, called for long-term development in the Sinai, and recommended better coordination with the Palestinians.
Mr. Morsi’s spokesman, Yasser Ali, explained later that the president, who visited four injured soldiers in a military hospital, had not wanted to interfere with the public’s ability to attend the ceremony. “It was also tense,” he said. “We all realize the magnitude of the sadness, so the president preferred not to come.”
Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting from El Arish, and Alan Cowell from London.