In first new disclosures on the storming of Israel’s Cairo embassy which started Friday night, Sept. 9, DEBKAfile‘s counter-terror sources reveal that the mob was led by the terrorist Jama’a al-Islamiya, the Egyptian founding branch of Al Qaeda, and two other radical Egyptian Islamist groups.
DEBKAfile’s description of the events gives us also a rather ‘tangible idea’ of the current state of the so-called Arab spring (or of “Libyan freedom,” as Maltese revolutionary columnist Daphne Caruana Galizia liked to call this thing once – of course not knowing what she was talking about):
DEBKAfile‘s intelligence sources also reveal that Egyptian security forces delayed for eight hours before tackling the mob smashing into the embassy building and rampaging inside – even after US Ambassador Anne Patterson interceded on behalf of the six Israel security officers barricaded in the embassy’s security room as the rabble battered on its steel door.
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The Egyptian authorities only tackled the mob when violent groups broke into police headquarters in the upscale Giza district, stripped the gunroom and shared the weapons among themselves before returning to the street. Before that, the local police stood by and watched them sacking and burning the embassy without moving.Scared of the rioters, the Egyptian commandos ordered to rescue the six Israelis under threat of lynch, discarded their uniforms and mingled with the crowd. When they reached the locked room, they were unable to open the steel door. The head of Egyptian unit had to find the Israeli Shin Bet director Yoram Cohen, who was in urgent conference with Israel’s national leaders in the situation room, to obtain the code.
They then dressed the six Israelis like typical Egyptians and hustled them to safety past a throng of 40,000 howling for Israeli blood.
debkafile‘s intelligence sources also reveal that Egyptian security forces delayed for eight hours before tackling the mob smashing into the embassy building and rampaging inside – even after US Ambassador Anne Patterson interceded on behalf of the six Israel security officers barricaded in the embassy’s security room as the rabble battered on its steel door.
She acted to save their lives on direct orders from President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after Ambassador Yitzhak Levanon and 80 members of staff and families had been collected from their homes and lifted out of Egypt by two Israeli military planes.
The Egyptian authorities only tackled the mob when violent groups broke into police headquarters in the upscale Giza district, stripped the gunroom and shared the weapons among themselves before returning to the street. Before that, the local police stood by and watched them sacking and burning the embassy without moving.
Scared of the rioters, the Egyptian commandos ordered to rescue the six Israelis under threat of lynch, discarded their uniforms and mingled with the crowd. When they reached the locked room, they were unable to open the steel door. The head of Egyptian unit had to find the Israeli Shin Bet director Yoram Cohen, who was in urgent conference with Israel’s national leaders in the situation room, to obtain the code.
They then dressed the six Israelis like typical Egyptians and hustled them to safety past a throng of 40,000 howling for Israeli blood.