World Threats

Al Arabiya reports that Egyptian protesters stormed offices of the Egyptian Secret Police and seized confidential files.

Several of the seized documents focus on the January 25 revolution, which ousted the Egyptian regime. The documents attribute the revolution to a scheme devised by the United States, the European Union, and Israel to infiltrate the region and put an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict. State security reports found in the office also accuse Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah of taking advantage of their strong ties with the Muslim Brotherhood to storm security offices in Egypt.

Debka provides some amplification to this report.

Friday night, thousands of protesters seized control of the headquarters Egyptian security police (Mahabis Namn El Dawla) in Alexandria, Cairo and the nearby 6 of October town, shutting down its operations across the country. … The capture of the three Mahabis centers opened to disaffected elements the secret files on every political and military leader in the country, confidential information once accessible only to ex-intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman before the uprising. …

Last Wednesday, March 2, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused Iran of stirring the pot when she addressed the House Appropriations Committee: “They (the Iranians) are using Hizballah… to communicate with counterparts… in (the Palestinian movement) Hamas who then in turn communicate with counterparts in Egypt,” she said.
Debkafile’s sources report that large sums of Iranian petrodollars have reached the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and radicalized its message to the Egyptian people. Military young leaders are believed to have executed a coup and displaced the veterans. The Palestinian Hamas has turned its well-oiled smuggling machine into a channel for transmitting Iranian cash to keep Egyptian Islamic extremists on the march.

Please read both articles for more information.

Analysis. I strongly suspect that the “protesters” who took down the secret police offices were Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood) or an intelligence service and that this was planned. It is somewhat unlikely that the three major offices of the secret police would be attacked relatively simultaneously without prior planning. This operation would have two goals. First, to uncover what information the secret police might have on the members of the Ikhwan. Knowing this information will help the Ikhwan to purge itself of traitors and spies. Second, to uncover incriminating evidence against the current Egyptian leadership, especially senior military leaders. This information will be used to blackmail the leadership into cooperation with an Ikhwan takeover of Egypt.

Debka is pretty good at crying wolf. However, in the light of Secretary Clinton’s testimony, Debka might be correct this time. We have known for a long time that Iran through the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Qods Force and Hezbollah has been supporting Hamas and other radical Islamic groups working to destroy Israel. Turning Egypt from being a non-enemy of Israel into being a serious strategic problem for Israel would go a long way towards Iran’s goal of destroying Israel. It has been a long time since Israel has had to consider a threat from the west other than the rejectionist groups in Gaza which are really no more than an irritant at this point. Adding two Egyptian field armies to that force changes the whole equation.

While Iran did not start this current round of instability in the Middle East, there is no doubt that they will take every advantage of the situation to sow hate and discontent towards other governments in the area that support US policy. The current revolutions in Bahrain and the anticipated demonstrations in eastern Saudi Arabia are examples of Iranian meddling. A lot of this was described in a previous post. These demonstrations will continue to the point where the security forces get really violent or some accommodation is reached between the ruling houses and the rest of the people. Until then, Iran will continue to stir the pot.