Crackdown on dissent deepens crisis in Egypt

Egyptians attend the funeral of a dozen policeman and a civilian killed from an explosion at a police headquarters, in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura. Photo: AP

Cairo: In the wave of bombings and targeted assassinations that has swept Egypt since August, Thursday's bomb blast on a busy street in Nasr City, east of Cairo, caused only a modest amount of damage.

Five people were injured, one seriously, the health department reported There were no deaths - nothing like the carnage caused by the massive explosion in the northern city of Mansoura earlier this week in which 16 people, mostly policemen, were killed and more than 130 were injured.

But it was the third time in the past four months that Nasr City, just half an hour from downtown Cairo, has been targeted, exposing what some experts say is a weakness in the country's overstretched security services that has allowed the chaotic terror attacks of the North Sinai to reach Egypt's capital.

On September 5, the Minister of the Interior, Mohamed Ibrahim, survived an assassination attempt when a parked car exploded as his motorcade passed by, injuring 21 people, some critically.

Last month Mohamed Mabrouk, a lieutenant colonel in the state security service, was shot and killed near his home in Nasr City.

As police cordoned off the street affected by the latest blast near the entrance to al-Azhar University, reports emerged that another two devices planted in the area had been defused.

The violence came a day after Egypt's military-backed interim government announced it had designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation, freezing the assets of its many charities and threatening harsh penalties for those associated with the Islamist movement.

It came in a week in which the government announced fresh terrorism charges against the former president and Brotherhood leader, Mohamed Mursi, along with other senior figures in the movement.

And it came just days after the jailing for three years of three secular leaders of the January 25 revolution - Ahmed Maher and Mohamed Adel, as well as Ahmed Douma - under Egypt's harsh new anti-protest law.

In a country already orbiting on the far edge of political and sectarian tension and reeling after six months of daily protests and violence, the events of the last week have plunged Egypt even deeper into division.

Both the European Union and the United States urged Egypt to reconsider the sentences against the three young activists, expressing concern at the ''worsening climate for freedom of assembly and peaceful expression in Egypt''.

''The implementation of Egypt's restrictive demonstrations law has led to an increase in arrests, detentions, and charges against opposition figures, human rights activists and peaceful demonstrators, and sends a chilling message to civil society at large,'' US state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

The interim government has been at war with the Brotherhood since the military - it says in response to mass public protests over the poor performance of Egypt's first democratically elected government - deposed Mr Mursi on July 3.

Up to 1000 people were killed by security forces dispersing Muslim Brotherhood sit-ins on August 14, and since then human rights groups estimate that thousands of Brotherhood leaders, members and supporters have been rounded up in a campaign of mass arrests and indefinite detention designed to cripple the movement.

In the past month the government has turned its attention to the secular activists, targeting those who challenge its so-called ''roadmap'' to democracy.

And it is in this climate that the government intends to hold a referendum on the country's new constitution on January 14 and 15.

In trying to find a context for the attacks across Egypt, in which more than 170 police and security forces have been killed, many are looking to the 1990s, when the country last experienced a sustained campaign of terror.

The Islamist group al-Gama'a Islamiya led an insurgency against the Egyptian government from 1992 to 1998 in which at least 796 policemen and soldiers died.

The group is best known for its attack on the southern tourist hub of Luxor in 1997 that killed 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians.

But that insurgency had one key difference to the acts of terror occurring across the country now, says Geneive Abdo, a fellow in the Middle East Project at the Stimson Centre and a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution.

''In the 1990s the attacks were clearly coming from al-Gama'a Islamiya; now with the evolution of radical groups in the Middle East it is difficult to know who is really responsible - is it al-Qaeda, is it an al-Qaeda group from another country?'' Ms Abdo says.

But instead of seeking answers to those questions, the government is blaming the Brotherhood for violence that is being carried out by far more extremist groups, she says.

Despite the Brotherhood's denials, the government insisted it was to blame for Tuesday's bombing in Mansoura, even though a militant Islamist group based in the Sinai and inspired by al-Qaeda, known as Ansar Bayt al Maqdis, claimed responsibility.

''We are in a far more complicated and dangerous situation than the 1990s and the military, over time, appears to be losing control over the situation,'' Ms Abdo says.

''Unfortunately it seems that this may be the future of Egypt if the government continues with this crackdown ... it has established a policy of complete repression and there is not going to be any backing down.''

But it is here that Ms Abdo says the government has made a major miscalculation.

''The more the military-backed government feels emboldened and the more they crack down, the more public support they are losing, especially because their crackdown has expanded to include non-Brotherhood activists and leaders,'' she says.

Indeed a ''fast poll'' conducted this week by the polling company Baseera found just 35 per cent of Egyptians blamed the Brotherhood for the Mansoura bombing, 46 per cent were unsure and 15 per cent blamed other Islamist groups.

Meanwhile, the crackdown continued on Thursday as security forces targeted the daily protests staged by Brotherhood supporters across the country.

Police arrested at least 18 Muslim Brotherhood supporters, the state news agency reported, the first arrests on charges of belonging to a terrorist organisation coming not 24 hours after the group was declared terrorists.

There was no doubt that the security forces were using the continued defiance of the Muslim Brotherhood as an excuse for their actions, says Tamara Alrifai, a spokeswoman for Human Rights Watch in Egypt.

''This is a very polarised society ... and since June 30 the security forces know they have a free hand to do whatever they want to repress the Brotherhood,'' Ms Alrifai says.

''Obviously now they are broadening this out to include other activists.''

H.A. Hellyer, a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution and the Royal United Services Institute, put it simply.

''Dissent itself, beyond violent Islamist dissent, and including non-violent and non-Islamist dissent, is now being tackled.''

It is a risky path to take, he warns, for a country about to go to the polls while fighting violence across many fronts.