Black Bloc Attacks Muslim Brotherhood Targets In Egypt

Black Bloc Cairo, the anarchist anti-Islamist group, took responsability for an attack on a Muslim Brotherhood headquarters building on Friday. Egyptian authorities, who have been quick to label the mask-wearing protestors as provocateurs sent by Israel, claimed the Black Bloc had hurt women in the attack, something that Black Bloc Cairo denied in their statement.

Other Black Bloc attacks happened elsewhere in Egypt on a protest day known as “Friday of Restoring Diginty.” As reported by AhramOnline:

Angry protesters stormed a number of the Islamist group’s offices on Friday, including in Mahalla (Gharbiya governorate), where protesters threw Molotov cocktails and set alight an office of the Brotherhood’s political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), while chanting against the group and the president.

In Zagazig (Sharqiya governorate) angry protesters stoned a local Brotherhood office.

On the Mediterranean coast in Egypt’s second-largest city, Alexandria, protesters ransacked a local FJP office.

The Mahalla attack is another landmark in a city that has been unfriendly to Muslim Brotherhood rule but that also was hostile to Egypt’s ousted President Hosni Mubarak. Mahalla is the largest industrial city in Egypt and the center of the country’s textile industry. Many consider it to be the birth of the country’s Arab Spring protests after violent protests against Mubarak broke out in 2011. However, Mahalla was also the home to large protests in 2006 over the Danish cartoon that was said to mock Islam. 

In December 2012, protesters in Mahalla threw out the head of the city council and it declared it to be an autonomous state, stating: “We no longer belong to the Ikhwani state.” The Arabic term for the Muslim Brotherhood is al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeeen.

Breitbart News has reported on the Egyptian Black Bloc previously. The violent anarchist protests highlight a situation in the Middle East where it can be difficult to find a side to root for. 

Retribution against the Black Bloc is expected.