[h=3]By MATT BRADLEY[/h]CAIRO—Egypt's Islamist president shocked the country by dismissing the powerful military leadership on Sunday in a move that consolidated his civilian authority and expanded the power of his office.
If the military accepts the decision, it could effectively end a monthslong power struggle between the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and Mohammed Morsi's young presidency that has undermined Egypt's rocky transition to civilian rule.
European Pressphoto AgencyEgyptian President Mohamed Morsi, center, Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi, left, and armed forces Chief of Staff Sami Annan, right, attending a graduation ceremony of military cadets in Cairo in July.
It was too early to tell Sunday whether Mr. Morsi's surprise gambit had the generals' blessing or whether it might invite a sharp response from the military leadership and its judicial allies.
Mr. Morsi, Egypt's recently inaugurated head of state, retired Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the defense minister, along with Lt. Gen. Sami Anan, the military council's chief of staff, and the heads of the navy, air defense and air force.
European Pressphoto AgencyEgyptian President Mohamed Morsi, center, speaks to soldiers, flanked by Hussein Tantawi, left, and Sami Annan.
Mr. Morsi also reversed a constitutional declaration the military issued in June—only hours before Mr. Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood declared victory in the presidential race—that had granted the armed forces expansive power over the country's nascent democratic system.
The president will retain both Field Marshal Tantawi and Lt. Gen. Anan as advisers, said Yasser Ali, Mr. Morsi's spokesman. The arrangement suggests that the men were consulted in advance and had prepared their resignations willingly. Mr. Morsi also awarded each of them "Order of the Nile" medals—Egypt's highest state honor—and appointed Mahmoud Mekki, a senior judgewho built his reputation on challenging Egypt's former regime, as vice president.
U.S. officials said they were monitoring the developments closely and were trying to assess the implications of Mr. Morsi's move to sack Field Marshal Tantawi, who has been close to the U.S. since the reign of ousted President Hosni Mubarak.
During a visit to Cairo this month, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he believed Mr. Morsi and Field Marshal Tantawi were working well together toward a smooth transfer of power.
The resignations appeared to complete a raft of high-level reappointments after 16 Egyptian soldiers were killed when suspected Islamist extremists attacked a military outpost near the border with Israel in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
Mr. Morsi fired his intelligence chief, several high-level ministry of interior officials and the head of his own presidential guard last week. While the incident first appeared to many observers to be an indictment of Mr. Morsi's own poor security bona fides, Sunday's announcement showcased the new president's political dexterity. He appeared to exploit the Sinai killings to empower his office at the military's expense.
A violent crackdown against suspected militants in the sparsely populated Sinai Desert continued for a seventh day on Sunday when Egyptian security forces killed six people in al-Goura village during a raid for illegal weapons, Reuters said.
In pushing Mr. Tantawi and his top officials aside, Mr. Morsi appeared to effect a kind of counter-coup against a ruling council of 19 generals who had clung to power months after handing over executive authority to an elected president. The move helps vindicate Mr. Morsi's stated efforts to set a precedent for the new Egyptian presidency as a fully independent office.
"This is a huge part of the level of acceptability that we're seeing now in terms of how different bodies of the state are starting to deal with him," said Gehad al Haddad, an adviser to the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, which Mr. Morsi led before he won the presidency. "The military establishment is starting to deal with him as their head."
Like many of the twists and turns that have complicated Egypt's fraught transition to civilian, democratic rule, Sunday's announcement was mired in legal uncertainty—offering a potential opening for the courts to block the move. Mr. Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood backers have sparred with Egypt's judicial system, which is stocked with anti-Islamist judges appointed by Mr. Mubarak.
While Mr. Morsi was within his rights to sack Field Marshal Tantawi and his top officers, experts say he may have exceeded legal bounds when he canceled a so-called "supplemental constitutional declaration" that the military issued in late June.
That declaration allowed the armed forces to award themselves expansive authority, including the power to draft and pass legislation, veto decisions by a panel charged with drafting a new constitution and have final say in waging war and decisions related to the military's budget.
The Supreme Constitutional Court has already ruled that the military's constitutional declaration is legal. Reversing the ban might put Mr. Morsi's presidency on yet another collision course with the court system.
"This is a civilian led putsch. It's extralegal," said Michael Hanna, an Egypt expert at the New York-based Century Foundation, a progressive think tank. "It requires for the supreme constitutional court to cease to be a binding force. I don't think there's any other way around it."
Indeed, Sunday's announcement bore some of the trappings of the kind of soft coup the military leadership orchestrated to limit the power of Mr. Morsi's incoming presidency in late June, analysts said.
By reversing the military's June constitutional declaration, Mr. Morsi effectively awarded many of the military's expansive political powers to his own office, exceeding even those enjoyed by the ousted Mr. Mubarak.
The public was given no advance notice of Sunday's decision, and Field Marshal Tantawi and Lieutenant General Anan's replacements were sworn in immediately after the announcement in somber, perfunctory ceremonies that were aired live on television.
Senior members of the Freedom and Justice Party used Twitter and Facebook to urge the group's supporters to rally for their president in the streets, as if in preparation for a backlash.
By Sunday evening, hundreds had gathered outside the presidential palace and in downtown Cairo's Tahrir Square with banners to declare their allegiance to the president.
Like the appointments to Mr. Morsi's first cabinet of ministers last month, the choice of Field Marshal Tantawi and Lt. Gen. Anan's replacements leaned toward relatively unknown technocrats. Field Marshal Tantawi will be replaced as Defense Minister by Lt. Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, an ex-head of military intelligence, and Lt. Gen. Sidki Sayed Ahmed will replace Lt. Gen. Annan.
Little is known of both replacements, though Lt. Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi angered activists last year when he reportedly admitted to Amnesty International that Egypt's military was using sexual intimidation—so-called "virginity tests"—to protect military personnel from accusations of rape.
—Adam Entous in Washington and Lara El Gibaly in Cairo contributed to this article.
If the military accepts the decision, it could effectively end a monthslong power struggle between the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and Mohammed Morsi's young presidency that has undermined Egypt's rocky transition to civilian rule.
European Pressphoto AgencyEgyptian President Mohamed Morsi, center, Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi, left, and armed forces Chief of Staff Sami Annan, right, attending a graduation ceremony of military cadets in Cairo in July.
It was too early to tell Sunday whether Mr. Morsi's surprise gambit had the generals' blessing or whether it might invite a sharp response from the military leadership and its judicial allies.
Mr. Morsi, Egypt's recently inaugurated head of state, retired Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the defense minister, along with Lt. Gen. Sami Anan, the military council's chief of staff, and the heads of the navy, air defense and air force.
European Pressphoto AgencyEgyptian President Mohamed Morsi, center, speaks to soldiers, flanked by Hussein Tantawi, left, and Sami Annan.
Mr. Morsi also reversed a constitutional declaration the military issued in June—only hours before Mr. Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood declared victory in the presidential race—that had granted the armed forces expansive power over the country's nascent democratic system.
The president will retain both Field Marshal Tantawi and Lt. Gen. Anan as advisers, said Yasser Ali, Mr. Morsi's spokesman. The arrangement suggests that the men were consulted in advance and had prepared their resignations willingly. Mr. Morsi also awarded each of them "Order of the Nile" medals—Egypt's highest state honor—and appointed Mahmoud Mekki, a senior judgewho built his reputation on challenging Egypt's former regime, as vice president.
U.S. officials said they were monitoring the developments closely and were trying to assess the implications of Mr. Morsi's move to sack Field Marshal Tantawi, who has been close to the U.S. since the reign of ousted President Hosni Mubarak.
During a visit to Cairo this month, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he believed Mr. Morsi and Field Marshal Tantawi were working well together toward a smooth transfer of power.
The resignations appeared to complete a raft of high-level reappointments after 16 Egyptian soldiers were killed when suspected Islamist extremists attacked a military outpost near the border with Israel in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
Mr. Morsi fired his intelligence chief, several high-level ministry of interior officials and the head of his own presidential guard last week. While the incident first appeared to many observers to be an indictment of Mr. Morsi's own poor security bona fides, Sunday's announcement showcased the new president's political dexterity. He appeared to exploit the Sinai killings to empower his office at the military's expense.
A violent crackdown against suspected militants in the sparsely populated Sinai Desert continued for a seventh day on Sunday when Egyptian security forces killed six people in al-Goura village during a raid for illegal weapons, Reuters said.
In pushing Mr. Tantawi and his top officials aside, Mr. Morsi appeared to effect a kind of counter-coup against a ruling council of 19 generals who had clung to power months after handing over executive authority to an elected president. The move helps vindicate Mr. Morsi's stated efforts to set a precedent for the new Egyptian presidency as a fully independent office.
"This is a huge part of the level of acceptability that we're seeing now in terms of how different bodies of the state are starting to deal with him," said Gehad al Haddad, an adviser to the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, which Mr. Morsi led before he won the presidency. "The military establishment is starting to deal with him as their head."
Like many of the twists and turns that have complicated Egypt's fraught transition to civilian, democratic rule, Sunday's announcement was mired in legal uncertainty—offering a potential opening for the courts to block the move. Mr. Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood backers have sparred with Egypt's judicial system, which is stocked with anti-Islamist judges appointed by Mr. Mubarak.
While Mr. Morsi was within his rights to sack Field Marshal Tantawi and his top officers, experts say he may have exceeded legal bounds when he canceled a so-called "supplemental constitutional declaration" that the military issued in late June.
That declaration allowed the armed forces to award themselves expansive authority, including the power to draft and pass legislation, veto decisions by a panel charged with drafting a new constitution and have final say in waging war and decisions related to the military's budget.
The Supreme Constitutional Court has already ruled that the military's constitutional declaration is legal. Reversing the ban might put Mr. Morsi's presidency on yet another collision course with the court system.
"This is a civilian led putsch. It's extralegal," said Michael Hanna, an Egypt expert at the New York-based Century Foundation, a progressive think tank. "It requires for the supreme constitutional court to cease to be a binding force. I don't think there's any other way around it."
Indeed, Sunday's announcement bore some of the trappings of the kind of soft coup the military leadership orchestrated to limit the power of Mr. Morsi's incoming presidency in late June, analysts said.
By reversing the military's June constitutional declaration, Mr. Morsi effectively awarded many of the military's expansive political powers to his own office, exceeding even those enjoyed by the ousted Mr. Mubarak.
The public was given no advance notice of Sunday's decision, and Field Marshal Tantawi and Lieutenant General Anan's replacements were sworn in immediately after the announcement in somber, perfunctory ceremonies that were aired live on television.
Senior members of the Freedom and Justice Party used Twitter and Facebook to urge the group's supporters to rally for their president in the streets, as if in preparation for a backlash.
By Sunday evening, hundreds had gathered outside the presidential palace and in downtown Cairo's Tahrir Square with banners to declare their allegiance to the president.
Like the appointments to Mr. Morsi's first cabinet of ministers last month, the choice of Field Marshal Tantawi and Lt. Gen. Anan's replacements leaned toward relatively unknown technocrats. Field Marshal Tantawi will be replaced as Defense Minister by Lt. Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, an ex-head of military intelligence, and Lt. Gen. Sidki Sayed Ahmed will replace Lt. Gen. Annan.
Little is known of both replacements, though Lt. Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi angered activists last year when he reportedly admitted to Amnesty International that Egypt's military was using sexual intimidation—so-called "virginity tests"—to protect military personnel from accusations of rape.
—Adam Entous in Washington and Lara El Gibaly in Cairo contributed to this article.