Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 14, Week 3, Day 6.

On Sunday (11/8/13) rumours began to circulate that the Egyptian military would move into clear the Muslim Brotherhood camps at the Rabea al-Adaweya Mosque in Nasr city and in Al-Nahda Square at dawn on Monday (12/8/13). In response the Brotherhood bused in thousands of extra supporters from across Egypt in order to resist the clearance. With the military not moving in on Monday by Tuesday (13/8/13) the Brotherhood supporters were getting restless and itching for a confrontation.

This prompted them to stage a "Together Against the Coup and the Zionists" protest march to the Ministry of the Interior headquarters near Nober Pascha Street. When the roughly 2000 marchers arrived at the building they were attacked by local residents armed with bottles and stones. The Brotherhood supporters responded by throwing missiles at the local residents prompting the police to intervene by firing tear gas in order to keep the two groups apart. This prompted the violence to spread to surrounding streets where rioting continued for a number of hours. During the confrontation at least one member of the Brotherhood was grabbed, beaten and stabbed by local residents. Later as Brotherhood supporters were returning to the al-Nahda Square camp local residents opened fire on them killing 1 and wounding 7 more. Almost as a reflex the Brotherhood blamed the shooting on police officers disguised in civilian clothes. With the security situation in the capital beginning to spiral dangerously out of control the military authorised by the President were left with little option other then to move in an clear the Brotherhood camps immediately.

At around dawn today this is exactly what they did first clearing the al-Nahda camp before moving on to the larger Rabea al-Adaweya camp. The first problem they faced was that both camps were heavily fortified with barricades made of steel and concrete. This meant that in order to gain access the police backed by the military had to use bulldozers to break down the barricades. As the Brotherhood supporters were quite happy to stand up against the barricades as this was happening it created the problem of people being run over and injured by flying debris. As the police and soldiers moved into the camp amid the chaos gas fired cooking stoves and petrol powered generators got knocked over starting fires leading to explosions and injuries. The second problem the police and military faced was that the Brotherhood were armed with everything from clubs up to assault rifles and had spent many of the previous days shouting slogans such as "Victory or Death." So as soon as the police and military moved into the camps the Brotherhood supporters opened fire on them forcing them to return fire in order to protect themselves. The exact number of people killed is something that is going to take a few days to work out however it is clear the Brotherhood got the massacre they so desperately craved and worked so hard to provoke.

That was purely the Brotherhood's choice though because in all of the scenarios I've played out in my head even with an unlimited number of highly trained and well equipped riot specialists I could not think of a way to clear encampments that are that heavily fortified and that heavily armed without there being casualties and fatalities. It is worth noting that at least 45 of those killed were police officers or soldiers which is an incredibly high casualty rate for an army operating on the streets of its own capital city.

The big mistake the military made was charging ahead with the clearances without first cordoning off the camps. This meant that they were unable to properly contain and control the situation. As a result as soon as the clearances began the violence spilt out into the surrounding streets with Brotherhood supporters running riot burning and looting Coptic Churches, schools and business along with government buildings and police stations. It was during this period that the majority of the deaths occurred. This failure very nearly jeopardised the entire operation with supporters who had been evicted from the al-Nahda camp immediately heading to the Rabea al-Adaweya camp where they fought running battles with the police and military on the outskirts of the camp very nearly preventing the police and military from entering and clearing the camp. Brotherhood supporters also took to the streets in cities across Egypt where they were quickly set upon by local residents. As security has always been a problem in Egypt's smaller cities such as Alexandria there were very few police and soldiers to keep the Brotherhood supporters and the local residents apart meaning that many of Egypt's cities have today been engulfed by rioting with extensive property damage, injury and death.

The question of course is what happens now? The worst case scenario is that despite the necessary state of emergency and the overnight curfew Brotherhood supporters will set up new camps across Cairo meaning that we will have to go through all this all over again in the coming days. Sadly there is some evidence that this is already happening with the Brotherhood calling for supporters to gather at Mustafa Mahmoud Square in Giza. I hope that camp doesn't take hold because I would much prefer be talking about things like the appointment yesterday of 20 new local governors, the proposed economic roadmap or the panel set up to re-write the constitution rather than the Brotherhood and their violent rampages.

20:40 on 14/8/13.