ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: Newsmax
28January2011 10:58pmEST
GCIS/MSS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: A source on the ground in Cairo who supports the protesters and who joined the rally that triggered a brutal backlash from police Friday tells Newsmax that the uprising in Egypt has no link to Muslim extremism, nor any other religious motivation.
“It has nothing to do with religion, it has nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood, there were no religious connotations in this revolt,” says Ahmed, an owner of a high-tech business who has lived his entire life in the Cairo region. “People were just asking for freedom and liberty after 30 years of oppression.”
Newsmax is withholding Ahmed’s full name to avoid any chance of reprisals from his speaking to the media. This morning the government of Egypt shut down all cell phone communications, and about 85 percent of the nation’s Internet traffic, in order to block protesters’ efforts to coordinate their activities. But Ahmed was still able to speak to Newsmax via a landline.
Despite the important role played by Nobel Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, whose return to Egypt encouraged tens of thousands to pour out into downtown Cairo and Alexandria to protest the 30-year rule of strongman President Hasni Mubarak, Ahmed says the uprising in Egypt is essentially leaderless. (read full report)
how the protest movement responds to Mubarak's decision to hold on to power in defiance of their main rallying cry and how the army conducts itself as thousands of protesters defy the nationwide curfew decree. So far, they have not fired the machine guns on their tanks and the soldiers were welcomed although there were some cases of hostility.