Unknown assailants damaged early on Tuesday the foundation in Cairo’s famed Tahrir square for a proposed memorial dedicated to protesters killed in Egypt’s revolutionary turmoil of the past 2 1/2 years.
The pre-dawn attack came just hours after the military-backed Interim Prime Minister Hazem el—Biblawi inaugurated the foundation in a ceremony held amid tight security.
The attackers, mostly men in their early 20s, used rocks to chip away at the large foundation stone and sprayed it with red graffiti denouncing ousted President Mohamed Morsy and Gen. Abdel—Fattah el—Sissi, the military chief who removed him in July after days of mass protests demanding that the Islamist leader step down.
The attack underscored the deep scars left by the political turmoil in Egypt since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in 2011, with revolutionary groups feeling betrayed by successive governments whose main failures, in their view, was the inability to dismantle the Mubarak regime and ensure retribution for the hundreds of protesters killed at the hands of police and soldiers since 2011.
Some of those who participated in that revolt and the mass anti—Morsi protests in June feel the memorial does not honour the dead as much as it tries to paper over the continuing deep disputes over Egypt’s future.
They say the military—backed interim government, which was brought to power after the July coup that ousted Morsi is seeking to impose its control over what they see as an intrinsically anti—authoritarian space.
Entrances sealed
All entrances to the square were sealed off by security forces and armoured personnel carriers, which caused hours of traffic congestion in Cairo.
Egypt’s revolutionary groups were to mark later Tuesday the second anniversary of some of the fiercest confrontations between Egyptian protesters and security forces on a street near Tahrir.
The clashes in Mohammed Mahmoud street had killed at least 45 people. Rallies are also expected later in the day amid fears of more unrest and violence.
Suspected killers held
Meanwhile, Egyptian authorities have arrested 15 people suspected of involvement in the killing of a security officer who was in charge of investigations into Islamist extremist groups, reports said on Monday.
A security official told the state-run al-Ahram newspaper that several people with non-Egyptian Arab nationalities were among those detained.
Gunmen in two cars ambushed Major Mohamed Mabrouk when he was on his way to work on Sunday, spraying his car with bullets.
Mabrouk had been appointed to head the section in the national security department that investigates Islamist extremists, after the military overthrew President Mohamed Morsy on July 3, the report said.
The officer was involved in the arrests of members of a suspected extremist group in Cairo last year, as well as of leaders of Mr. Morsy’s Muslim Brotherhood.
Mabrouk had also drawn up a report accusing Mr. Morsy of conspiring with the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, security sources said.
