Russia deploying warship, missile cruiser to Mediterranean

Uncertainty in Egypt

Uncertainty in Egypt

In a televised speech late on the night of July 3, Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced that Morsi was no longer in office and declared that the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Adly Mansour, had been appointed as the new interim president of Egypt. The army also suspended the constitution.

Army officials said Morsi, who took office in June 2012, was being held “preventively” by the military. On July 4, Mansour was sworn in as interim president.

The Muslim Brotherhood has declined to negotiate with the new administration, saying they can only hold talks after Morsi is reinstated as president.

On July 5, Muslim Brotherhood supreme leader Mohammed Badie said the coup against Morsi was illegal and millions would remain on the street until he is reinstated.

Badie vowed to "complete the revolution" that toppled the Western-backed regime of former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

In this edition of the show we ask: Is this the end of the Morsi presidency? How will this phase in Egypt end?

Uncertainty in Egypt video

Syria chemical visit postponed for safety: UN

A convoy of United Nations (UN) vehicles leaves a hotel in Damascus on August 26, 2013 carrying UN inspectors traveling to the site of a suspected chemical weapon attack.

 A team of United Nations inspectors has delayed its visit to the site of the recent chemical attack near the Syrian capital, Damascus, due to safety issues.

A statement by the world body said on Tuesday that the visit is postponed until Wednesday to improve "preparedness and safety." 

This comes after the convoy of UN inspectors, who were due to begin a second day of investigation into the alleged chemical use in the Arab country, came under attack a day earlier. 

On Monday, snipers fired multiple shots at the team of inspectors as they tried to visit an area in west of Damascus, forcing them to suspend their mission. 

Damascus blamed foreign-backed militants for the attack, saying they are trying to force UN experts to cancel their work. 

UN spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters that the first day of investigation had been “very productive,” and that the team was "already gathering valuable evidence.” 

UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, also said despite the "very dangerous circumstances," the experts have "interviewed witnesses, survivors and doctors" and "collected some samples". 

Hundreds of people were killed and scores of others injured in a chemical attack in the Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar on August 21. 

Both the Syrian government and the foreign-backed opposition accuse each other of being behind the deadly attack. 

The Damascus government, however, has vehemently denied the accusations, saying the chemical attack was carried out by the militants themselves as a false-flag operation. 

In March, dozens of people were killed in a chemical attack in the northern province of Aleppo. A Russian-led inquiry said that militants were behind the deadly attack. 

Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since 2011. The United Nations says more than 100,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since the outbreak of the violenc
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US begins war on Syria as early as Thursday, officials say

The guided-missile destroyer USS Gravely

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Senior American officials say the United States has planned to launch missile strikes against Syria “as early as Thursday” in order to punish Damascus over the alleged use of chemical weapons.

The unnamed officials told NBC News on Tuesday that the “three days” of strikes would be limited in scope, and aimed at “sending a message to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad rather than degrading his military capabilities.”

On Monday night, four US warships were deployed in the Mediterranean within cruise missile range of Syria.

American defense officials said if the US wants to send a message to Assad, the most likely military action would be a Tomahawk missile strike, launched from a ship in the Mediterranean.

The US military has beefed up equipment during the past weeks. Several nuclear-powered submarines are reportedly in the water near Syria, also cruise-missile equipped.

The report came one day after US Secretary of State John Kerry accused the Syrian government of using chemical weapons.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem on Tuesday accused Kerry of lying about the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government, challenging Washington and its allies to provide evidence.

This is while the UN inspectors are still in Syria to investigate the chemical weapons attacks and they are not scheduled to leave the country until Sunday.

Russia and China have both warned against a US-led military intervention in Syria. Moscow says a military action would have "catastrophic consequences" for the entire region.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told British Prime Minister David Cameron in a telephone call Monday that there was no evidence that an attack had taken place or who was responsible.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned on Monday that the use of force without a U.N. mandate would violate international law. 

West, Arab leaders reach ‘consensus’ on Syria attack

The British Royal Navy's helicopter carrier HMS Illustrious is deployed to the Mediterranean, on August 25, 2013.

Western and Arab military leaders have reached a “consensus” on military intervention in Syria over accusations that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons, a Jordanian security official told German news agency, DPA.

“It was decided that should the international community be forced to act in Syria, the most responsible and sustainable response would be limited missile strikes,” the official said on condition of anonymity on Tuesday following a meeting held in the Jordanian capital, Amman.

The military leaders led by Chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey agreed to prepare for the strike as early as this week, the official added.

Meanwhile, the British Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman said UK armed forces are devising contingency plans for military action against the Arab country over the alleged use of chemical weapons.

The UK has been reportedly sending warplanes and military transporters to its airbase in Cyprus, situated near Syria.

US defense officials also say several navy destroyers have been deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean to be used against Syria upon an order of President Barack Obama.

“[The destroyers] are in position if needed, but they, to my knowledge, have received no tasking to this point, and that would come obviously from the White House,” an American military official said on condition of anonymity.

On August 21, the militants operating inside Syria and the foreign-backed Syrian opposition claimed that 1,300 people had been killed in a government chemical attack on militant strongholds in Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar.

However, the Syrian government categorically rejected the baseless claim, and announced later that the chemical attack had been actually carried out by the militants themselves as a false flag operation.

Damascus later allowed UN chemical weapons inspectors to the site of the chemical weapons attack near the Syrian capital on Monday, when they began taking samples from the victims.

Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since 2011. The United Nations says more than 100,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since the outbreak of the violence.
 

Profile: Egypt armed forces chief Abdul Fattah al-Sisi

The head of Egypt's armed forces, Gen Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, has been in the post for less than a year, and has now been instrumental in the downfall of the man who gave him the role

When President Mohammed Morsi appointed Gen Sisi as general commander of Egypt's armed forces and defence minister on 12 August 2012, it was seen as an attempt to reclaim political power from the military, which had seized control after President Hosni Mubarak was ousted.

But it was Gen Sisi who warned Mr Morsi of another army intervention if the government failed to respond to "the will of the people", following nationwide protests. And two days later, on 3 July, he announced on state TV that Mr Morsi "did not meet the demands of the masses".

In the months after his appointment, Gen Sisi maintained a calm public persona. Far from a stern military figure, he is a charismatic presence, often seen smiling and known for delivering speeches on emotive topics. During an address at a concert in April, some of the artists on stage with him broke down in tears.

After his ultimatum to the government and its opponents to resolve the country's crisis within 48 hours, army helicopters threw thousands of Egyptian flags over protesters in Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square.

The cheering crowds responded with chants of "the people and the army are one hand".

Virginity tests

His popularity among anti-Morsi protesters is evidence of a significant shift in Gen Sisi's public image.

In April 2012 he hit the headlines after issuing a statement intended to defend the behaviour of the armed forces during protests in Tahrir Square in 2011.

When soldiers violently cleared Tahrir Square on 9 March, 17 women were detained, beaten, prodded with electric shock batons, subjected to strip searches, forced to submit to "virginity tests" and threatened with prostitution charges.

Gen Sisi said "the virginity-test procedure was done to protect the girls from rape as well as to protect the soldiers and officers from rape accusations", according to the state-owned newspaper, al-Ahram.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) quickly distanced itself from the comments, but the incident remained a stigma for the military.

Later, during a meeting in Cairo in June 2012, Gen Sisi promised the human rights group, Amnesty International, that the army would no longer carry out the controversial tests. He said people alleging human rights abuses at the hands of the army should complain to the military prosecutor and stressed the importance of ensuring social justice for all Egyptians.

Military career

Born in Cairo on 19 November 1954, Gen Sisi served in the infantry corps after graduating from the Egyptian Military Academy in 1977.

Gen Sisi and President Morsi at a Sinai Liberation Day ceremony in Cairo

Despite never gaining any combat experience - like Field Marshal Tantawi and other Scaf members - he nevertheless rose up the ranks in the army, specializing in commanding mechanised infantry and eventually heading a division of such troops. He was also in charge of information and security at the general secretariat of the Defence Ministry and served as Egypt's military attache in Saudi Arabia.

Later, Gen Sisi served as chief-of-staff and then commander of the Northern Military Zone, headquartered in Alexandria, before being appointed director of Military Intelligence and Reconnaissance.

Prior to being promoted to head of the armed forces, he sat on the Scaf as the former head of Military Intelligence, and was one of its youngest members.

Strong US ties

Following his appointment as defence minister and armed forces chief, many commentators in the Egypt media asked questions about Gen Sisi's relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, from which President Morsi hails.

The pro-military owner and leading presenter of the TV station al-Faraeen, Tawfiq Ukasha, accused him of being "their man in Scaf", and reports also emerged that his wife wore the niqab, a full-face veil worn by some Muslim women.

Gen Sisi hosted US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel in April 2013

However, the Scaf insisted that its members had no partisan or ideological affiliation to any political forces in Egypt.

Mutaz Abdul Fattah, a professor at Cairo University, also said Gen Sisi did not belong to the Muslim Brotherhood, writing on Twitter: "He is not a member of the Brotherhood; he is just a religious man."

In August 2012, the newspaper al-Tahrir also reported that Gen Sisi had "strong ties with US officials on both diplomatic and military levels".

He had studied in Washington, attended several military conferences there, and engaged in "co-operation with regard to war games and intelligence operations in recent years", it said.

Egypt crackdown hits Brotherhood power bases

Cairo, Egypt - More than 13 million Egyptians voted for the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated candidate Mohamed Morsi in the presidential elections in 2012. One year later, as Morsi turns from the first democratically-elected, civilian president to deposed leader, a majority of Egyptians said in a recent poll that they agreed with the way two Brotherhood protest camps were cleared by security forces in recent weeks. 

Last Wednesday, security forces cleared the Rabaa and Nahla square camps of Brotherhood supporters who were protesting the military order deposing Mosi, leaving hundreds of people dead and thousands injured. The military takeover followed mass protests by disgruntled Egyptians against the president and the Brotherhood more generally. 

As senior officials from Brotherhood are arrested and hundreds of supporters are killed in protests, the future of the 80-year-old organisation, which is thought to be the largest Islamist group in the world, has become a matter of intense speculation.

Mohamed al-Qassas, a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood who left the organisation following the 2011 revolution, says that Morsi's rule was"catastrophic".

"That's why I participated in the June 30 mass protests against Morsi," the young defector said. He believes that what he considers Morsi's bad governance made a military coup inevitable. "But no-one imagined this level of violence against the Brotherhood,"

Syria denies chemical weapons claim

Foreign Minister Walid Moualem challenges the world to give evidence that his government was behind last week's attack.

Walid Moualem, the Syrian foreign minister, has 'categorically' denied that his country was using chemical weapons on its own people.

At a press conference held in Syrian capital Damascus on Tuesday, he challenged the world to provide evidence that the Syrian government was behind last week's alleged chemical weapons attack in eastern Ghouta, a suburb of the capital Damascus.

The Syrian foreign minister accused John Kerry, his American counterpart, of lying and disregarding the work of UN inspectors when he stated there was “undeniable" evidence of a large-scale chemical attack.

"We are all hearing the drums of war being beaten around us. If these countries are willing to launch an aggression or military act against Syria, I believe, the pretext of chemical weapons is false, baseless and groundless. And as I said, I challenge, I dare them to produce any single piece of evidence", Moulem said.

He also claimed that the second trip of the UN inspectors to the site of an alleged chemical weapons attack
had been postponed to Wednesday due to disputes among the rebels.

The Syrian foreign minister said the rebels in eastern Ghouta could not reach agreement about guaranteeing the team's safety.

"A comprehensive assessment determined that the visit should be postponed by one day in order to improve preparedness and safety for the team", the UN announced in a statement released just after Moualem's press conference. 

The UN inspectors were due to begin a second day of investigation into last week's alleged chemical-weapons attack in the suburbs of the Syrian capital, Damascus.

The Syrian opposition says more than 1,300 people died when toxic gases were unleashed on Eastern Ghouta and Moadamiya - two neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Damascus - last Wednesday.

The UN team came under sniper fire on Monday as they tried to visit an area in western Damascus.

The convoy of six vehicles was shot in the buffer zone between rebel and government areas near Damascus as it travelled to Moadamiya and Ghouta.