{"id":10906,"date":"2011-09-14T14:03:03","date_gmt":"2011-09-14T10:03:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=10906"},"modified":"2011-09-14T14:03:03","modified_gmt":"2011-09-14T10:03:03","slug":"football-supporters-behind-attack-on-israeli-embassy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-politics-analysis\/football-supporters-behind-attack-on-israeli-embassy\/","title":{"rendered":"Football Supporters Behind Attack on Israeli Embassy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) has penalized crowned Cairo soccer club Al\u00a0Ahly SC in a bid to prevent renewed violence from erupting during the team’s match\u00a0next week against Premier League club ENPPI.\u00a0The EFA ordered Al Ahly to play its next match away from its home grounds and to pay\u00a0for damages caused to Cairo stadium last week as a result of\u00a0 clashes between Ultras\u00a0Ahlawy, the club’s militant, violence-prone, highly politicized soccer fans, and\u00a0security forces that left 130 people, including 45 policemen, wounded.<\/p>\n

Ultras Ahlawy and Ultras White Knights, the militant supporters of Al Ahly’s arch\u00a0rival, Al Zamalek, joined forces days later in mass anti-government demonstrations\u00a0on Friday and Saturday in which protesters stormed the Israeli embassy in Cairo,\u00a0forcing its diplomatic staff to be evacuated from the country.<\/p>\n

“Ahly must fund repairs of all damage caused to the Cairo stadium stands,” EFA\u00a0competition committee president Amer Hussien said in a statement on the EFA’s\u00a0website.<\/p>\n

The measures followed a vow by Egypt’s military rulers to prosecute to the full\u00a0extent of the law the protesters, many of whom were militant soccer fans, who\u00a0stormed the Israeli embassy. \u00a0Ultras Ahlawy denied earlier this week any involvement in the attack on the Israel\u00a0embassy as well as the targeting by protesters of the Saudi Arabian embassy, the\u00a0interior ministry and a police station despite a plethora of pictures and witness\u00a0statements showing the participation of soccer fans in the protests.<\/p>\n

The denial, much like the position that the militant soccer fans took on the eve of\u00a0mass anti-government demonstrations early this year that forced President Hosni\u00a0\u00a0Mubarak to resign after 30 years in office, appeared designed to distance the\u00a0organization from any political activity while at the same time encouraging members\u00a0to play an active role in the demonstrations.<\/p>\n

Both Ultras Ahlawy and Ultras White Knights issued statements on January 24 of this\u00a0year, the day before the first of 18 days of protests and clashes with pro-Mubarak\u00a0forces that ousted the president that they as organizations were not involved but\u00a0that their members were free to participate. The ultras played a key role in the\u00a0clashes that ultimately defeated Mr. Mubarak and brought the military to power with\u00a0a pledge to lead the country to elections within six months.<\/p>\n

This weekend’s protests and the attack on the Israeli embassy reflected mounting\u00a0frustration with the fact that the military has since delayed the election date\u00a0although few believe that it wants to retain power, been slow in holding accountable\u00a0police officers and Mubarak loyalists responsible for the deaths of hundreds during\u00a0the protests that led to the toppling of the president, cracked down on the right to\u00a0criticize the armed forces and charged thousands of protesters and activists in\u00a0military courts.<\/p>\n

Many Egyptians have also taken the military to task for failing to respond\u00a0forcefully to the killing last month of three Egyptian soldiers by Israeli forces\u00a0chasing Palestinian militants near the border with Egypt. Egypt alongside Jordan is\u00a0the only Arab nation to have concluded a peace treaty with Israel and to have\u00a0established diplomatic relations.<\/p>\n

Tuesday’s clash erupted after the militants shouted slogans against Mr. Mubarak and\u00a0his imprisoned interior minister, Habib el-Adli. Both men are on trial for allegedly\u00a0being responsible for deaths of protesters during anti-government protests early\u00a0this year.<\/p>\n

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S.\u00a0Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and the author of the blog,\u00a0The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer<http:\/\/mideastsoccer.blogspot.com<\/a>>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JAMES DORSEY: The militant supporters of Al Ahly and Al Zemalek, who were prominent in the 25th January Revolution, were instrumental in the attack on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":10907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,124,82,235,60,482],"tags":[408,16479,407,378,8736,18300,354,4234,338,2323,18311,3736,18305,8221,8530,3784,1808,318],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10906"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}