Two masked protesters pose for a picture in front of burning buses during clashes between supporters and opponents of Egypt’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood near the Islamist group’s headquarters in Cairo, Egypt. Known as the “Battle of the Mountain,” a ferocious recent fight between members of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and their opponents in Cairo is looking like a dangerous turning point in the country’s political turmoil. Some protesters showed a new willingness to turn to violence against Islamists they accuse of dominating Egypt, while Islamists have heightened their calls for action against opponents they accuse of trying to topple the president.CAIRO – It has come to be known as the “Battle of the Mountain”: a ferocious fight between members of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and their opponents near the group’s Cairo headquarters. In a country that has already seen crisis after crisis, it could mark a dangerous turning point in the political turmoil.
The aftermath of the fighting is raising worries that the confrontation between Islamists,, who dominate power in the country, and their opponents is moving out of anyone’s control.
The riot on March 22 revealed a new readiness of some in the anti-Brotherhood opposition to turn to violence, insisting they have no choice but to fight back against a group they accuse of using violence against them for months. The fight featured an unusual vengefulness. Young protesters were seen at one point pelting a Brotherhood member with firebombs and setting him aflame. Others chased anyone with a conservative Muslim beard, while Islamists set up checkpoints searching for protesters. Each side dragged opponents into mosques and beat them.
Since the fight, Islamists enraged by what they saw as aggression against their headquarters have for the past week hiked up calls for wider action against opponents – and the media in particular – accusing them of trying to overthrow Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
Those calls may explain moves by the country’s top prosecutor the past week: the questioning of a popular television comedian, Bassem Youssef, whose Jon Stewart-style satires of Morsi drive Islamists into knots of anger, the summoning of several other media personalities and the issuing of arrest warrants against five opposition activists on accusations of fomenting violence.