The “V word” has finally been uttered by George Bush.
Tag: military
Egypt border guard shot dead along Israel border
From Reuters…
Egypt border guard shot dead along Israel border
14 Oct 2006
ISMAILIA, Egypt, Oct 14 (Reuters) – An Egyptian border guard was shot dead on Saturday in the Sinai peninsula while on patrol along the Israeli border and another critically wounded, security sources said.
Several Egyptian security sources at the border said preliminary investigations showed the two guards may have had a dispute with a third border guard, who then shot them.
But other Egyptian security sources said it was too early to draw any conclusions and an investigation would focus on all possibilities, including that the fire may have come from Israel. Those sources said the investigation into the shooting near el-Kuntilla, 55 km (35 miles) northwest of the border town of Taba, would also look into the possibility that the border guards were shot in a shootout with smugglers, or in a dispute with another guard. The Sinai peninsula has been the scene of a string of three deadly bomb attacks targeting popular Red Sea beach resorts over the past two years that have killed scores of people.
Egypt has laid the blame for the Sinai bombings on local militants including Bedouin with militant Islamist views.
Smuggling is also common along the Egypt-Israel border.
“Egypt’s rights defenders are NOT afraid of the army”
I received an email from a rights activist friend, asking whether I read NYT’s story on Talaat el-Sadat’s prosecution by the military. My friend was so upset by misreporting that:
Mr. Sadat’s case has not prompted the kind of outcry from human rights activists and democracy supporters in Egypt that other cases have, in part because it involves one of the remaining red lines — the military. Another reason is that he spins tall conspiracy theories, suggesting, for example, that Israel and the United States may have had a hand in the assassination.
My friend was fuming, as the NYT report totally ignored that eight rights group issued a statement denouncing the trial. “We drafted this statement precisely because I didn’t want anyone, let alone the NYT, to say Egypt’s rights defenders are afraid of the army,” my friend wrote me in an email exchange.