Middle East Revolutions: Current Bahrain protests getting violent

[Cantih]

Aaaaaand pro-mubarak protesters get into Tahrir Square, start a fight, and many are expecting the president to use it as an excuse for a crackdown.

[Cantih]

3:17pm Al Jazeera correspondents in Tahrir Square says that the pro-government mob is chanting slogans against Al Jazeera and apparently trying to find them. Reports of at least one Al-Arabiya correspondent being stabbed.

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-ea...egypt-protests

[ZarakiKujata]

holy fuck lol. Dictators around the world are quaking, definitely the most interesting thing to happen for some time! I do hope the people in Yemen/Jordan don't too quickly trust what their leaders have to say now, it is probably a delaying tactic until the excitement of revolution is over.

And. I wonder if Wikileaks can take any credit for all this, as the the Tunisian revolution happened shortly after the cable about their president :O

Not sure about world.. but this obviously has rippled to every secular military dictatorship in the Middle East. I guess Syria needs to watch the fuck out? Hopefully this can reignite some of the Iranian protests, the government just removed oil subsidies so gas and other staples have risen in price in Iran and its caused some unrest.

[Edelweiss]

Apparently the pro-Mubarak "protesters" were persons paid to clash with the revolutionaries, or were plain-clothed police/etc. . I've heard conflicting reports about the exact percentage of whom are such, but given the looting and shit done by the plain-clothed police, I am not surprised.

[Mistress Stowastiq]

Uh there is an all out foot war going on between anti and pro mubarak crowds at the square and in the area. People are grouped on either side. What is odd is that the pro mubarak people just arrived out of no where and have been totally silent during this whole week and last. There are rumors that they took over tanks too. @Edelweiss there are like women and children in the crowd. I wonder if the prisoners are part of this.
Its like sticks and rocks being thrown. Frantic woman on phone with AL Jazeera "There are thousands of women and children here!"

People tried to take refuge in the museum grounds but the soldiers started to protect it. I think this is how the soldiers left their tanks unattended and the tanks got overtaken by pro-mubarak people. Something tells me that they should have had more soldiers out there.

[Cantih]

AJELive At least three army vehicles have been seized by pro-Mubarak supporters

So yeah, shit's going to go down today.

[Edelweiss]

Depends really if it's actually tanks, or some APCs or something. Plus, those tanks that I have seen are Vietnam-vintage.. it's not -as- bad as if it was a current generation MBT. Still, given the situation and circumstances there, it's going to be fucking bad if those who seized control of anything with any offensive capability whatsoever know how to operate the shit.

Especially when the revolutionaries are armed with just sticks, stones, and hand-thrown objects. Even an APC with a light machinegun would be slaughterous.

[Mistress Stowastiq]

I think they mean the trucks but there is about 1k pro and the rest are anti. I can't believe I am watching a rock [and other objects being thrown] fight between people who want to kill eachother.
"Anti-mubarak people performing citizen's arrests on and dragging pro-mubarak people to the army forces at the gate of the museum."


Yeah its the three green trucks that were controlled by the pro forces but now are barriers being used by anti mubarak forces.

[Edelweiss]

I think they mean the trucks but there is about 1k pro and the rest are anti. I can't believe I am watching a rock [and other objects being thrown] fight between people who want to kill eachother.

Yeah, it looks like it's just 1/2 ton trucks.

Well, it's the culmination (maybe) of the past week, and ratcheting up of tensions and distrust they have towards Mubarak. Plus, it's almost certain pro-government forces (like the police) are intimately involved in stirring shit up; those who aren't implicitly involved with the government are just there to participate in the chaos.

[Uzor]

think this has 3 possible outcomes to this (maybe more)

1- government shuts the people up by force, or by promises
2- People succeed in overthrowing the government, elects a new and improved president with a new government, Israel goes emo; more problems in the region.
3- U.S goes for the killshot, government overthrown, everyone with personal interest gets involved, egypt becomes a warzone: just like Iraq.

I'm hoping for #2, it can evolve in to something sexy, like a chain of changes will ensue the region, everyone will rise, Islam strikes back!
thats me dreaming.

yes the majority of the issue is nationalism, but other parties who are trying to change the government are for Islamic objectives, Ikhwaan Il Muslimeen (Brothers of Islam) is one of them. Like i said, it can evolve in to this.

Sunni or Shia, we are all muslims. regardless of some differences. this issue is far too complex for you to really talk about my dear Kuya


Iraq makes me believe there is a chance for option 3, yo.

Two or three of the potential leaders have stated that they want to keep the peace treaty with Israel. The others haven't stated whether they want to or not. The one from the Muslim Brotherhood, who want Egypt to be a country ruled by Sharia laws, is one of the ones that stated they want to keep the peace treaty, and he was one of the more extremist ones.

[Hyan]

I can't believe I am watching a rock [and other objects being thrown] fight between people who want to kill eachother.

Dang, I wish this shit happened somewhere with snow. SNOWBALL WAR

[ZarakiKujata]

You're retarded if you think any new Egyptian government is gonna give up billions in aid from the US by turning on Israel.

[Cantih]

Dang, I wish this shit happened somewhere with snow. SNOWBALL WAR

Isn't that what Sweden is for?
Ok, maybe I'm reading too much SatW.

[ZarakiKujata]

Dang, I wish this shit happened somewhere with snow. SNOWBALL WAR

Unlikely/rare for it to happen with snow, something beyond the pale has to occur. Hot weather/heat waves have a demonstrable effect on riots, cold weather usually does the opposite b/c who wants to go outside when its freezing.

[Mistress Stowastiq]

@Hyan yes although this is far worse and I feel bad for them, I was thinking it looked like a snowball fight from a distance.


WTF: "ProMubarak people on camels and horses going towards the anti."


Ohh interesting how Egyptian state TV [note white pyramid icon in upper right corner] is on the real events now, showing the fights.
The person on the phone from Human Righs Watch said about the pro-Mubarak ppl: "I wouldn't describe them as demonstrators, they were very aggressive and full of rage."

[Edelweiss]

@Hyan yes although this is far worse and I feel bad for them, I was thinking it looked like a snowball fight from a distance.


WTF: "ProMubarak people on camels and horses going towards the anti.


Ohh interesting how Egyptian state TV [note white pyramid icon in upper right corner] is on the real events now, showing the fights.

Gas is expensive, when you're poor.

Also, interesting note. According to Richard Engle, these pro-Mubarak crowds have been mobilized in the past, specificly in elections, to literally stuff ballot boxes. So I suppose that might lend more credibility that this group is not quite "organic"..

Edit: And more reports that the pro-Mubarak people were bussed in, and armed with short-bladed weapons, etc.

[Mistress Stowastiq]

@Edelweiss I do remember Richard Engel saying that too. I wonder how he is doing. It was pretty cool seeing him escort Brian Williams around dt Cairo especially when they got caught in the civilian-run checkpoint. So basically the pro-Mubarak ppl are astro-turfed but I wonder if they are any of the prisoners.

I can tell the difference just having watched this shit 24-7 for the past weeks [got lotsa spare time lol] that there is a MASSIVE attitude difference between the pro and anti ppl.


People are chucking shit off of the roofs Monty Python Holy Grail style now, not good. They are ripping the ceiling fixtures off. AJ doesn't know yet if the ppl on the roof are pro or anti.

One other thing. Earlier this week when the army first came in, one of the reporters said that the army is not trained in any people management type things only offensive shit. I guess this is odd to me being that I do not know about armies in other countries because I am used to seeing the US army doing nation building type things and naively assumed other armies knew this stuff.

Perhaps some one here with knowledge of military can help me out here.

[Olo401]

Lots of reports that the pro-Mubarak crowds that have been forming are actually armed thugs and police (they've been flashing their IDs on Al Jazeera and CNN) and that the army simply allowed them to walk into the square without any restriction to start beating on the crowd of protestors, who for the most part VOLUNTEERED to be searched & stripped of any weapons.

This now gives the army a reason to clamp down on all protest activity. Looks like Mubarak's playing his trump card.

[Salodin]

Where are you guys watching this? I tried AJEs site, but good lord is it getting DDoSd or something? Shit is not responding. I hope their servers weren't located in Egypt >_>

And at this point, with the numbers they have, is there anything the pro-Mubarak/military can really do even if they tried to clamp down? It really looks like most people there are willing to take a beating to get the guy out asap. One guy with a knife is not going to stop 20 determined people from beating his ass, let alone a few hundred. If the anti-Mubarak people start to get serious about fighting back, I really doubt there is going to be anything to stop them. It will really turn into a civil war, and I doubt they're stupid enough to let that happen when the culprit is so obviously known.

[Antithesis]

http://bitcast-a-sm.bitgravity.com/s.../indyegypt.jpg