The possibility of the military taking control of the regime on the back of the popular uprising to end Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule was actively discussed Friday night, Jan. 28, after security forces failed to control anti-government riots for four days. Protesters in Cairo, Alexandria and Suez ignored the nationwide curfew imposed until 0700 Saturday and the soldiers who were called in to enforce it held their fire. Protesters overturning and burning security forces vehicles welcomed the military APCs.

The Mubarak regime was badly shaken Thursday night, Jan. 27, when Egypt's most powerful opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, ordered its teeming membership to join the protest movement raging in Cairo and other cities since Tuesday after Friday (Jan. 28) prayers.  With many millions about to join the demonstrations, the president has little choice but to order the army in - without being entirely certain that it will obey orders to crack down on disorder.

Egyptian authorities wait anxiously to see if the millions of Muslims attending the mosques Friday join the anti-government demonstrations rocking the cities since Tuesday or stay on the fence. Field Marshall Tantawi returned home empty-handed from Washington where he asked for American backing for Mubarak's friendly regime.

Hundreds of opposition activists were arrested by Egyptian security forces in Cairo, Alexandria and Suez Wednesday in an attempt to quell the stormy anti-government demonstrations which began sweeping Egyptian cities Tuesday, Jan. 25, before they get out of hand. After nightfall, hundreds braved the ban on street protests and gatherings and took to the streets of Cairo and Suez. Cairo reports 500 arrests, while debkafile's Middle East say the figure is closer to 1,000, including journalists.

The high jobless rate among educated young Saudis is the greatest peril to the throne. The class most likely to cause trouble is that of young educated Saudis who are bitterly frustrated by the dearth of jobs for high school and university graduates.
Unemployment in the oil kingdom stands ...

Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been overthrown in a military coup. Friday, Jan. 14 he fled his riot-stricken country in the middle of his fifth term as president, handing interim authority to Prime Minister Mohammad Ghannoushi. debkafile's sources report the real power in the land is the army.

Arab regimes were dismayed by the fall of the Tunisian president, the first Arab ruler to be overthrown by street demonstrations making way for a military coup. Tourists are being evacuated and European flights to Tunis cancelled.

The suicide attack on the Coptic Saints Church in Alexandria, northern Egypt, which left 21 dead and 79 injured after New Year's mass, was carried out by a local Egyptian Islamic Jihad extremist, debkafile's counter-terror sources report.  In calling for national unity, President Hosni Mubarak stepped away from blaming Al Qaeda, which has been massacring Iraqi Christians. But he also glossed over homegrown terror by calling the attack "a foreign assault."

A secret meeting in Tel Aviv on Dec. 16 between the high-ranking Russian emissary Mikhail Margelov and representatives of the South Sudanese semi-autonomous government so infuriated Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that he ordered his intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman to hit back by accusing Israel of recruiting Egyptian agents as spies. Cairo fears upheavals following Jan. 9 referenda in oil-rich South Sudan and Abyei will prejudice its control of Nile waters.

Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Libya's Muammar Qaddafi both visited Khartoum ahead of the January 9 self-determination referenda in oil-rich South Sudan and the province of Abyei. But Mubarak cares more about keeping his control of Nile waters intact, whereas Qaddafi's concerns focus on a rich fuel resource falling under ...

Egypt's first lady does not want her son to succeed his father as president. Because of their spat and other squabbles at the top, the general election was a shambles and Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman emerged as leading contender for the presidency.

Mubarak and his ruling party have swung deals with the opposition for distributing seats in the Nov. 28 parliamentary election. But the ordinary Egyptian wants to know where the heir apparent, his son Gemal, has disappeared to.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia secretly carried out their first ever joint exercise this week with the participation of their special operations, marine, armored, missile, air and naval forces, debkafile's military sources reveal.  Exercise Tabuk-2 was programmed to repulse a potential Iranian attack on Saudi Arabia by taking the battle over to Islamic Republican territory. It took place in Egypt's northern desert abutting the Mediterranean Sea where conditions resemble the eastern Saudi Arabian Persian Gulf coast.

After murdering four Israelis outside Hebron on Aug. 30, the Hamas gunmen planned to bury their bodies and use them as live hostages to extort the release of fellow-terrorists from Israeli jails. This was divulged by the Egyptian semi-official Al Ahram Monday, Sept. 20. Taken aback by Israel's failure to fight the new wave of Hamas terror, Cairo leaked this information, gained from grilling Hamas General Security chief Muhamad Hamis Dababash, to the Egyptian newspaper.

Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani and foreign affairs and security committee chairman Alaeddin Boroujerdi are preparing an epic descent on the Gaza Strip - at earliest next Saturday, June 19 - and a tour of the Israeli border debkafile's Iranian sources reveal. Tehran has applied to Cairo for visas for 200 Iranian lawmakers, leaning hard on Cairo for its assent - up to and including President Hosni Mubarak.

The first Iranian aid ship for Gaza set ...

For four days, Egyptian special forces have been fighting Bedouin tribesmen in rugged central Sinai in an effort to shut down the arms-cum-fighter smuggling highway they run for al Qaeda and the Palestinian Hamas, debkafile's counter-terror sources report. The al Qaeda-led tribesmen are battling Egyptian APCs, artillery and helicopters with heavy machine guns and RPGs, in exchanges so fierce that the Egyptians retired to El Arish Saturday, May 29, to recuperate, restock on ammo and collected reinforcements for the next round.

Hosni Mubarak prepares to step down at 82. His son and successor, Gemal (Jimmy) Mubarak, 52, has begun taking over some of the presidential duties.

Hosni Mubarak's son Gemal may find himself in the presidential palace sooner than expected. The transition was organized in detail last year by the ruling party's political and military establishments, affording little leeway to contenders like Mohammed ElBaradei.

Senior Hamas commander, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, 50, died in Abu Dhabi on Jan. 20 and his body reached Damascus on Jan. 28, according to Izzat Rishq speaking at Hamas headquarters in the Syrian capital early Friday, Jan. 29.  He accused Israel of his assassination without specifying its circumstances.  ...

The director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, paid secret visits to Cairo and Jerusalem Thursday, Jan. 28, to prepare the ground for expanding US military intervention in Yemen against al Qaeda strongholds, thereby opening a fresh front in the war on Islamist terror organization.
He asked for an Egyptian expeditionary force to back up US special forces and the use of Egyptian airfields as jumping off bases for US air ...

At the core of the new peace proposal would be a letter signed by the US presidential underwriting an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord based on pre-1967 borders with adjustments to accommodate demographic changes, limited territorial swaps and support for East Jerusalem as capital of a future Palestinian state.