Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has come under pressure to run from members of the public who reject the Islamist government he toppled last year, and from the armed forces who want a president who can face down growing political violence.
He has calculated that he can win the votes of those who backed Mohamed Morsi for president in 2012 simply because he represented change from the era of former air force commander Mubarak, ousted in the revolutions that swept the Arab world.
But despite his present popularity, Sisi has no record as a democrat and has shown himself willing to use deadly force against those who disagree with him.
Sisi has trodden a careful path to power since overthrowing Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, last July. It’s the kind of measured advance he has made all his life, from his childhood in the dirt lanes of Cairo’s Gamaliya district, to the highest rank in one of the largest armies in the Middle East. On Monday, the presidency announced he was promoted to field marshal from general.
Friends and family speak of him of as a man of few words and decisive action.
‘He loved to listen and carefully study what was said. After he heard many opinions then he would suddenly strike,’ said his cousin Fathi al-Sisi, who runs a shop selling handicrafts.
‘Abdel Fattah had one thing in mind: work, the military, rising to the top.’ The world knew little of Sisi before he appeared on television on 3 July and announced the removal of Morsi after mass protests against the Islamist leader.
It was Morsi who appointed Sisi army chief of staff and defense minister in August 2012, perhaps his gravest mistake. Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader, wanted a young general to reduce the influence of the military old guard who had served under the autocratic Mubarak before the 2011 revolution.
Exit from Afghanistan to hit US drone missions the hardest
NEW YORK: The possibility of a complete withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan has raised concerns that the US will lose strategic air bases meant for drone strikes against the Al Qaeda in Pakistan and for responding to a nuclear crisis in the region, a media report said. In the event of President Barack Obama ultimately withdrawing all American troops from Afghanistan, the CIA’s drone bases in the war-torn country would have to be closed because they could no longer be protected, a report in the New York Times quoted US administration officials as saying. The concern of American intelligence agencies also reflect how troop levels in Afghanistan directly affect long-term American security interests in neighbouring Pakistan, it said. The concern of American intelligence agencies is that the ‘nearest alternative bases are too far away for drones to reach the mountainous territory in Pakistan where the remnants of Al Qaeda’s central command are hiding. Those bases would also be too distant to monitor and respond as quickly as American forces can today if there were a crisis in the region, such as missing nuclear material or weapons in Pakistan and India,’ the NYT report said.
He has calculated that he can win the votes of those who backed Mohamed Morsi for president in 2012 simply because he represented change from the era of former air force commander Mubarak, ousted in the revolutions that swept the Arab world.
But despite his present popularity, Sisi has no record as a democrat and has shown himself willing to use deadly force against those who disagree with him.
Sisi has trodden a careful path to power since overthrowing Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, last July. It’s the kind of measured advance he has made all his life, from his childhood in the dirt lanes of Cairo’s Gamaliya district, to the highest rank in one of the largest armies in the Middle East. On Monday, the presidency announced he was promoted to field marshal from general.
Friends and family speak of him of as a man of few words and decisive action.
‘He loved to listen and carefully study what was said. After he heard many opinions then he would suddenly strike,’ said his cousin Fathi al-Sisi, who runs a shop selling handicrafts.
‘Abdel Fattah had one thing in mind: work, the military, rising to the top.’ The world knew little of Sisi before he appeared on television on 3 July and announced the removal of Morsi after mass protests against the Islamist leader.
It was Morsi who appointed Sisi army chief of staff and defense minister in August 2012, perhaps his gravest mistake. Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader, wanted a young general to reduce the influence of the military old guard who had served under the autocratic Mubarak before the 2011 revolution.
Exit from Afghanistan to hit US drone missions the hardest
NEW YORK: The possibility of a complete withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan has raised concerns that the US will lose strategic air bases meant for drone strikes against the Al Qaeda in Pakistan and for responding to a nuclear crisis in the region, a media report said. In the event of President Barack Obama ultimately withdrawing all American troops from Afghanistan, the CIA’s drone bases in the war-torn country would have to be closed because they could no longer be protected, a report in the New York Times quoted US administration officials as saying. The concern of American intelligence agencies also reflect how troop levels in Afghanistan directly affect long-term American security interests in neighbouring Pakistan, it said. The concern of American intelligence agencies is that the ‘nearest alternative bases are too far away for drones to reach the mountainous territory in Pakistan where the remnants of Al Qaeda’s central command are hiding. Those bases would also be too distant to monitor and respond as quickly as American forces can today if there were a crisis in the region, such as missing nuclear material or weapons in Pakistan and India,’ the NYT report said.