Egypt's president moves to assert authority over military

Attack by militants is used by president Morsi to settle scores with the generals who stripped him of significant powers days before his inauguration.

The militant attack on an army checkpoint last week has offered Mohammed Morsi an opportunity to assert his authority in the face of the powerful military.

It is too early to say whether Egypt's president will emerge stronger from the storm created by the August 5 attack that left 16 soldiers dead, but he appears to have taken several gambles in his bid to show he is in charge and not just a president operating in the shadow of the influential generals.

He may have chosen a good time to take on the generals. The military has been made vulnerable by the attack, with rare charges of negligence levelled against its leaders by the media. Some commentators even opined that the generals' involvement in politics in the 18 months since Hosni Mubarak's regime fell may have distracted them from maintaining combat readiness.

Some witness accounts support that contention. There appeared to be no soldiers on sentry duty while the 16 troops sat down to eat their iftar meal.

No security forces, army or police, arrived at the scene of the attack for a whole hour after the gunmen left the small post, making away with an armored vehicle.

They drove the vehicle unchallenged for at least 10 kilometres before they stormed across the border into Israel where they were targeted by an airstrike.

Mr Morsi may have seen in the incident an opportunity to settle scores with the generals who stripped him of significant powers days before his inauguration on June 30 while granting themselves the right to legislate and control over the national budget and the drafting of a new constitution.

Chances like this do not come often and Mr Morsi knew it.

He had additional motives to act fast. Media that are sympathetic to the military and the Mubarak regime went to great lengths to direct popular anger over the incident away from the generals and towards Mr Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. They charged that his Islamist credentials were emboldening militants across the nation and that his warm ties with Gaza's Hamas rulers may have played a part in the attack too.

It worked. A mob attacked Mr Morsi's prime minister Hisham Qandil after he led prayers for the 16 soldiers in a Cairo mosque on Tuesday. They threw their shoes at him or waved them in his direction - acts meant to show contempt.

Heckled and verbally abused, Mr Qandil fled the mosque under the protection of his security detail in a humiliating scene. The mob also chanted slogans against the Brotherhood and Mr Morsi, who stayed away from the funeral. His absence proved to be politically costly as well as rich material for ridicule in the media and on social networks.

Mr Morsi struck back the next day, firing his intelligence chief, a career army officer appointed by Mubarak during his final days in power.

He also fired the governor of Northern Sinai where the attack took place and appointed a new commander for the presidential guards. He also asked Hussein Tantawi, the defence minister, to replace the commander of the military police and asked the interior minister to replace Cairo's security chief and the commander of the central security, a large police paramilitary force.

While the intelligence chief lost his job because he did not act on an Israeli warning of an imminent attack, it seemed that others were fired for failing to prevent the attack on the prime minister and, according to media reports, for advising Mr Morsi not to go to the funeral for security reasons.

Surprisingly, the decisions were made by the newly created National Defence Council, a top policy body where military commanders enjoy a comfortable majority and whose decisions are taken by a simple majority.

That meant that the military were on board when the decisions were made, something that fuelled speculations in Egypt that the generals and the Brotherhood may have reached some sort of understanding or perhaps reached a truce needed during a difficult time.

Whatever the case, Mr Morsi is tirelessly trying to make political gains out of the August 5 killings, but not without making dubious calls along the way. Beside not attending Tuesday's funeral with no regard to the political cost, his intensely publicised visit to Sinai on the previous day was restricted to the town of El Arish, a 30-minute drive away from the spot where the attack took place. He tried to make up for this on Friday when he visited the area, eating iftar with troops at the post which was attacked and later vowing to avenge the victims.