US to Reduce Military Aid to Egypt, Al-Sisi Keeps Door Open to Presidential Bid

Local Editor

The US plans to suspend a substantial portion of American military aid to Egypt, several administration officials said Tuesday, after last summer's deadly crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and the recent surge in violence there.
The decision, which is expected to be announced in the coming days, will hold up the delivery of several types of military hardware to the Egyptian military, these officials said, including tanks, helicopters and fighter jets.

The administration's move follows a lengthy review that began in August after days of bloody attacks on supporters of Egypt's ousted president, Mohamed Mursi, which left hundreds of people dead. The administration had already frozen the shipment of four F-16 fighter jets and canceled joint military exercises with the Egyptian Army.

According to the information, the United States will also suspend nonmilitary aid that flows directly to the government, but not support for other activities like education or hospitals.
The decision, which was first reported Tuesday by CNN, does not amount to an across-the-board cutoff of aid to the Egyptian government, officials said. But they said Obama felt compelled to take stronger action, especially after street clashes erupted in several Egyptian cities on Sunday, killing more than 50 people.
Under the administration's plan, officials said, the military aid could be restored later if the Egyptian government showed signs of restoring democratic institutions and a new government.

In a statement on Tuesday evening, Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said: "Reports that we are halting all military assistance to Egypt are false. We will announce the future of our assistance program with Egypt in the coming days."
Obama, she noted, said at the United Nations General Assembly last month that the "assistance relationship will continue."

On the security level, a bomb exploded in an empty military intelligence office in the Sinai Peninsula on Wednesday where the army is battling an extremist insurgency, a security official said.
He said the bomb went off in the town of Rafah bordering the Palestinian Gaza Strip. The office had been vacant since July, the official added.
The blast comes three days after 57 people were killed across Egypt in clashes between Islamists and security forces.
Dozens of soldiers and policemen have been killed in daily attacks in Sinai, as the army has poured troops and armor into the lawless peninsula to fight a militant insurgency.
On the internal political arena, Egypt's military chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi left the door open to a presidential run in elections next year, telling a paper published on Wednesday it was up to "God's will".
"The matter you speak of is tremendous and significant," Sisi replied when asked in an interview with al-Masry al-Yom whether he would stand for president.
"But I think the time is not right to ask this question, given the challenges and dangers facing the country which require we focus our efforts on achieving the plan for the future," he said.

The newspaper added that Sisi fell silent before reciting a Koranic verse loosely translated as: "And God's will prevails."
Several former presidential candidates who lost out to Mursi in elections last year have said they would support Sisi if he stood for president.
According to the interim government's timetable, parliamentary and then presidential elections are due to be held by mid-2014.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team