LAMIA RADI, Cairo | Wednesday
EGYPTIAN students, taxi drivers and shopkeepers crowded round television sets stacked up in electrical store windows in downtown Cairo on Tuesday evening, celebrating a string of elaborate attacks on New York and Washington.
“Bullseye,” commented two taxi drivers as they watched footage of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York shrouded in plumes of smoke after two presumably hijacked planes slammed into them earlier in the day.
Another Egyptian man, Gawish Abdel Karim, said he was pleased with the wave of violence in which another plane crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, the heart of the US defence establishment.
Nice work,” said Abdel Karim, who drives a car for an Asian embassy.
“The Americans have forgotten that God exists. They have us by the throat and now they find themselves in a science fiction film scenario, but this time Rambo’s not there to save the White House.”
Anti-US sentiment has mushroomed on the streets of Egypt and other Arab countries over its widely-perceived support for Israel over the Palestinians in the past 11 months of violence in the Middle East.
As with other US facilities around the world, workers at US government offices and Egyptian citizens were taking security precautions, with only “non-essential” operations set to be covered on Wednesday.
However, US officials said there had been no credible or specific threat against US citizens or interests here.
Abdel Karim hailed the attacks as “the best thing that’s happened since the October War,” referring to the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war when Egyptian forces made a surprise attack on the Israeli army across the Suez Canal.
“Mabruk! Mabruk! (congratulations)”, shouted a crowd of people huddled round the shop window.
Egypt, considered one of the “moderate” countries in the Middle East, is one of the United States’ strongest allies in the region, being the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.
But people on the streets do not necessarily see themselves as US allies.
“The Americans are cowards. They use other countries to hit us. They don’t have the courage to meet us face to face,” said Khalil Matar (43) who works in a state-run soap factory. “The myth of the indestructible United States has gone up in smoke.”
Polytechnic student Amira Ryad also vented her anger.
“We saw the tower crash down,” she said, referring to one of the two towers of the World Trade Center, both of which were razed by the attack.
“I only wish (US President) George Bush and his dear little baby (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon had been buried in there too,” she added.
Fellow student Murad went as far as speculating that the United States was behind the attacks, “to find an excuse for the National Missile Defence system” that Bush wants to deploy to protect the United States from so-called rogue states, despite widespread global opposition.
“Those people are capable of killing their own people to prove they’re right,” he said.
Egyptian President Hosni “Mubarak should know that the people can no longer be humiliated, but of course he’ll never declare war” on Israel, the student said.
Another taxi driver said he was going to make special prayers to thank him for the attacks against the US.
Meanwhile, the US ambassador to Cairo has partially suspended work at US government facilities in Egypt for Wednesday.
“As a precautionary measure, the US ambassador (David Welch) has decided to suspend non-essential operations at US government facilities in Cairo and Alexandria on Wednesday,” according to a statement read by a US embassy representative and posted on the embassy website.
US embassy staff in Cairo were also advised not to send their children to school on Wednesday, while US citizens in Egypt were urged to “minimize all non-essential movement for the next 24 hours and avoid public places and large gatherings,” it said.
“There have been no credible or specific threats against US citizens or interests in Egypt,” the statement added. “We have been in close contact with Egyptian government authorities that have assured us of their full and immediate co-operation.”
Meanwhile, sources close to Egyptian security said the state security and special forces were deployed around the embassy as well as at the American University of Cairo.
Security has also been stepped up around European embassies, the sources said.
After the attacks, the US State Department called on all diplomatic posts worldwide to take “necessary security precautions”.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he had sent his condolences to Americans over a wave of anti-US attacks and condemned terrorism after holding an emergency cabinet meeting.
“I’m very sad,” Mubarak told reporters, describing the attacks as “unimaginable” and “horrible.”
“This terrorism is dangerous and we denounce terrorism. We denounce terrorism under any circumstances,” he said. – AFP