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President Hosni Mubarak did not even wait for President Obama’s words to be translated before he shot back. “You don’t understand this part of the world,” the Egyptian leader broke in. “You’re young.” Mr. Obama, during a tense telephone call the evening of Feb. 1, 2011, had just told Mr. Mubarak that his speech, broadcast to hundreds of thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo, had not gone far enough. Mr. Mubarak had to step down, the president said. Minutes later, a grim Mr. Obama appeared before hastily summoned cameras in the Grand Foyer of the White House. The...

FBI affidavit details Abdel-Rahman's jailhouse pipeline JUNE 3--Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman laughed at the ease with which his legal team improperly smuggled messages that allowed the Muslim extremist to continue directing terrorist operations while serving a life sentence in a Minnesota prison cell, according to a sealed FBI affidavit obtained by The Smoking Gun. Abdel-Rahman joked that "trained doves" were transporting messages to his disciples. "I really would like that they arrest those doves. I wish that one day I read, 'The FBI was able to arrest the doves that are contacting the Sheikh.'" The convicted terrorist then added, "as...

Quick! Get NBC's Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel a chair. Engel claims that he was so shocked at Barack Obama's statement that he now considers Egypt neither an ally nor an enemy that he "almost had to sit down."  So if this is true, why did Obama support the overthrow of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak who was very much our ally, Engel wonders. Here (and below the fold) in this video is Engel in desperate need of a chair over the shock administered by Obama's uncertainity about whether Egypt is friend or foe.

The administration of US President Barack Obama reacted sharply to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s recent comment that Obama had “thrown allies like Israel under the bus” regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons program. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters that assistance “… provided to Israel by the United States has never been greater than it has been under President Obama. We have an extremely close relationship with Israel, which is appropriate given our unshakable commitment to Israel’s security.” Barack Obama an erstwhile supporter of the Zionist enterprise? Such drivel may stick with Hollywood’s glitterati, but outside of Tinseltown, the...

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt formally asked the International Monetary Fund for a $4.8 billion loan on Wednesday, seeking a desperately needed rescue package for its faltering economy but raising the possibility of painful restructuring in a country still reeling since its revolution more than 18 months ago. The loan deal, which Egypt says it will reach by the end of the year, presents a major test to the Muslim Brotherhood-rooted president, Mohammed Morsi, the country's first ever freely elected leader, brought to power after the fall of Hosni Mubarak. The IMF has avoided making specific conditions for a loan but...

When Jihad Came to America by Andrew C. McCarthy On May 2 and 3, 1990, the U.S. embassy in Cairo alerted its counterpart in Khartoum that Egypt’s “leading radical,” Omar Abdel Rahman, was on his way to Sudan. Warning that his ultimate plan might be to seek exile in the United States, the Cairo embassy asked its colleagues to pass along any information they might learn about his activities on Sudanese soil. What did U.S. officials already know about Abdel Rahman in 1990? As the 9/11 Commission would later determine, they knew that he had been arrested repeatedly in Egypt...

Mubarak was moved out of prison to a military hospital Tuesday after the 84-year-old ousted leader suffered a stroke and his condition rapidly deteriorated, officials said, adding a new element of uncertainty just as a potentially explosive fight opened over who will succeed him, with both candidates claiming to have won last weekend's presidential election. The developments add further layers to what is threatening to become a new chapter of unrest and political power struggles in Egypt, 16 months after Mubarak was ousted by a popular uprising demanding democracy. The campaign of Mubarak's former prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, said Tuesday...

Hosni Mubarak's health entered a "dangerous" phase on Wednesday, and doctors had to administer oxygen five times to help the deposed Egyptian leader breathe, according to security officials at his prison. Mubarak's health crisis came days after he was sentenced to life in prison for failing to stop the killing of protesters in the uprising that unseated him last year. The officials at Torah prison south of Cairo said Mubarak, 84, was suffering from shock and high blood pressure as well as breathing problems. Specialists were called in to examine him, and a transfer to a military hospital was being...

For nearly 30 years he was the pharaoh-like ruler whose word was law; the plunderer of billions of pounds of government money and controller of Egypt’s brutal police state. On Saturday night Hosni Mubarak began a new life as a convicted murderer. A broken and humiliated man of 84, he was flown by helicopter to Torah prison—where many of his enemies had once been jailed—just two hours after hearing a Cairo judge pronounce a life sentence on him for complicity in the murder of 850 protesters. He appeared to be in tears and at first refused to leave the plane...

Mideast: As the president sneaks more money in the budget for Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood thugs he helped install in Cairo show their gratitude by threatening to attack Israel. For three decades, the U.S. essentially paid Egypt not to attack our closest ally in the region. The policy worked to maintain peace. But Obama nullified that deal by backing Islamist revolutionaries against reliably pro-U.S. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Now the bribe has lost its effect. The new Egyptian leadership, led by the virulently anti-Jewish Muslim Brotherhood, this week issued a warning to Washington that it should understand that "what was...

Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, who preached in Tahrir Square 10 days ago, loathes Israel, justifies suicide bombings against its civilians. 1. Sheikh Dr. Yusuf Abdallah al-Qaradawi is a central figure affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. He was expelled from Egypt and found refuge in Qatar, operating from there throughout the Muslim world. 2. Many consider him the supreme religious and ideological authority for the Muslim Brotherhood, although he is not officially its leader. (In the past, he refused to accept the title of the Muslim Brotherhood’s General Guide). He is influential in Egypt and considered one of the most important Sunni...

Mohamed ElBaradei pulled out of the race for the Egyptian presidency on Saturday, the Nobel Peace Prize winner saying "the previous regime" was still running the country which has been governed by army generals since Hosni Mubarak was deposed. "My conscience does not permit me to run for the presidency or any other official position unless it is within a real democratic system," said the former head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, once seen a leading contender for the presidency.

This is breaking news: Ayman al-Zawahiri has officially been named ‘emir’ of Al Qaeda. This makes him the successor of Obama bin Laden, who was taken out by a team of Navy Seals earlier this month. Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reports that it has read classified documents from the Dutch secret intelligence organization (AIVD). According to the documents, Al-Zawahiri was appointed as Al Qaeda’s new leader during a meeting on May 9, a week after the death of OBL. “On May 9, the leadership of Al Qaeda elected Al-Zawahiri during a meeting in the tribal areas, between Afghanistan and Pakistan”,...

Prosecutors at the trial of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak have demanded the death penalty for him. Mr Mubarak is being tried in Cairo on charges of ordering the killing of demonstrators during unrest which led to his overthrow last year. The demand also applies to former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly and six other former security chiefs. More than 800 protesters were killed during an 18-day revolt before Mr Mubarak was ousted on 11 February. "Any fair judge must issue a death sentence for these defendants," prosecutor Mustafa Khater said, according to AFP. "He [Mubarak] can never, as the head...

Cairo (CNN) -- Kamal Ganzouri has agreed to become Egypt's prime minister and will form a new government, an Egyptian army spokesman said Thursday. This development -- announced by Lt. Col. Amr Imam -- comes days after former Prime Minister Essam Sharaf and his government quit en masse, and just days before Monday's parliamentary elections, which Egypt's military rulers vowed Thursday will go on despite ongoing violence and unrest. Ganzouri, who was Egypt's prime minister between 1996 and 1999 under President Hosni Mubarak, could not be reached to confirm his appointment. He met Thursday with Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, field marshal...

Egyptian security forces recently foiled an Israeli attempt to assassinate former President Hosni Mubarak and other senior Egyptian officials, the Egyptian weekly Rose al-YÅ«suf reported on Thursday. According to the report, the attempt was foiled after the members of the group were arrested. The group numbered four people, including one Egyptian citizen and three Israelis, the report said. A senior Egyptian security official told Rose al-YÅ«suf that the assassination was supposed to be carried out using a sniper, while Mubarak was hospitalized in Sharm el-Sheikh following his ouster earlier this year. The four were caught after one of the group...

The series of terror attacks that took place early Thursday afternoon on the road leading from the Israeli-Egyptian border to Eilat did not come as a surprise to Israel's senior security officials. They had expected it would occur at some stage or another. The escalating security situation in the Sinai Peninsula, continuous work on the new border barrier and the frustration of terror groups within the Gaza Strip who - for some time now - have not managed to successfully carry out a terror attack from within the Strip, all pointed at the likelihood of an attempt to attack via...

Rule Of Law: What does it say about the prospects for democracy in Egypt when its military rulers put former dictator Hosni Mubarak, caged and on a gurney, through a show trial? Very little, if history is any guide. The Arab world is cringing with apprehension at the hasty, desperate trial of the former despot, who until February ruled Egypt with an iron hand for 30 years. It's not that the charges against Mubarak — corruption and violence against protestors — are likely false. It's that this trial has all the earmarks of mob-pleasing revanchism that will shake citizens' trust...

On the first day of the trial of former Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak, a lawyer in the courtroom declared that Mubarak had actually died in 2004 and that the man believed to be Mubarak was an imposter imposed on Egypt in some Israeli-American conspiracy, according to Britain’s Telegraph newspaper.

Egypt sit-in despite concessions‎ BBC News - 12 Jul 2011 Protesters complain that nothing has changed, and believe the military rulers ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14128073 Daily Life in Egypt after the Revolution Remains the Same; but One ... 12 Jul 2011 - In terms of the everyday life of the people, nothing has changed in Egypt after the revolution... http://hetq.am/eng/news/2870/ Humbling of the pharoah | Anne Penketh | Independent The ... blogs.independent.co.uk [3 August, 2011] The received opinion in the West in recent days has been that nothing has changed in Egypt since the downfall of Mubarak... http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/08/03/the-humbling-of-the-pharoah/