Word: cairo
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
PEOPLE WALK THE STREETS OF Cairo these days peering over their shoulders. Tourists wonder if a bomb might be hidden in this bus or that corner cafe. Egyptians never know when they might be caught in a gun battle between radical Muslims and the police. "I don't worry about myself," says a native Cairene, "but I do worry about what could happen to my family." The peace of the capital is threatened by Islamic rebels seeking to ignite a civil...
...grimy streets of Cairo's Imbaba neighborhood, Islamic fundamentalists have taken charge, running protection rackets and intimidating the police. Gun battles have disrupted the southern city of Asyut as heavily armed police raid the havens of militants. Terrorists have set off bombs in the cities along the Nile, where tourists, foreign residents and Egyptian Christians are usually the targets. The violence ignited by extremists and police retaliation has killed 116 people in the past year, 29 in the past month. In a brutal campaign to put down the militants, the government has rounded up thousands of suspects and ordered almost...
...murder of two policemen. Then, acting on a tip that antigovernment militants were secretly assembling, security forces surrounded the city's al-Rahman Mosque. Gunfire suddenly pierced the night and continued for hours. When it was over, 14 had been killed, including a policeman. Eight coordinated raids in the Cairo area and one north of the capital produced more shoot-outs and more casualties: a total of 23 dead and 46 injured, the highest toll since the assassination of Anwar Sadat...
Coincidentally, 49 Muslim militants who have been charged with attacks on foreign tourists -- prime targets of late -- went on trial in Cairo. Some proclaimed allegiance to Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, the antigovernment cleric self-exiled in the U.S. Ironically, Sheik Omar's sudden notoriety as a result of the World Trade Center bombing in New York City may have helped provide President Hosni Mubarak with an excuse to order last week's bloody crackdown...
...government has answered with a massive security crackdown on fundamentalists in Cairo and other cities. In December Mubarak ordered 14,000 police and 100 armored personnel carriers to sweep Imbaba, a Cairo neighborhood known to be a sanctuary for extremists. Hundreds of fundamentalists were arrested. Still, the antigovernment attacks continue. Authorities now worry about the proliferation of small terrorist groups; diplomats fret about ham-fisted tactics. "The danger," warns an envoy, "is that fundamentalists may attain a level of faith that invites martyrdom...