Egypt Security Sector Report
This week’s dispatch tracks the mechanics of Egypt’s authoritarian order as it lurches between disasters and consolidation.
📁 The Police in Egypt’s Counterrevolution
I’m excited to announce that I have a chapter in the forthcoming volume Egypt’s New Authoritarian Republic, edited by Robert Springborg and Abdel-Fattah Mady, which is set to be published later this month by Lynne Rienner. My contribution, “The Police in Egypt’s Counterrevolution,” explores how the Ministry of Interior reasserted its dominance after the 2011 uprising, emerging stronger and more militarized under Sisi.
The chapter examines the police’s role in regime consolidation, the dynamics of repression, and the shifting balance within Egypt’s security apparatus. The volume as a whole offers a timely and critical examination of the architecture of authoritarian rule in today’s Egypt—don’t miss it.
📁 Collapse by Design
Egypt’s ruling elite boasts of modernization and resilience, yet the past week exposed the brittle infrastructure beneath the PR.
The Day Egypt’s Digital Brain Went Up in Flames
Egypt’s vaunted digital future had a literal meltdown this week when a fire gutted the Ramses Central Exchange, a major telecom hub in downtown Cairo. The blaze, which killed four people and injured over two dozen, didn’t just torch one building; it effectively unplugged half the country. Internet connectivity plunged to 44% of normal, crippling banking networks, mobile payments, online trade, and emergency services. The Egyptian stock exchange had to halt trading, many ATMs went down, and even Cairo Airport flights were delayed as staff scrambled to switch to manual operations. Court proceedings were also affected. Some local media websites became inaccessible, so they resorted to posting on social media instead.
Officialdom’s response came in two parallel realities. In one, independent monitor NetBlocks reported a “major” outage, with connectivity still badly crippled a day later. In the other, the Communications Minister insisted “most vital services” were operating normally and any malfunctions were merely temporary. Yet the Aviation Ministry admitted flights had been stuck on the tarmac until backup systems kicked in. The contradictions would be darkly comic if the stakes weren’t so high.
Telecom Egypt, the state-owned telecom monopoly controlling the country’s internet and landline infrastructure, announced on Thursday the appointment of Maj. Gen. Ahmed Said Abdel Rahman as the new government representative on the board of directors, replacing Maj. Gen. Ayman Mostafa Mohamed Ali (of the Signal Corps). The company stated that “this appointment comes as part of ongoing updates to the board’s structure and efforts to enhance institutional efficiency.”
Egypt’s leaders love to brag about the nation’s heavy telecom investments—the second highest in the Arab world—but that glossy ranking provided cold comfort during the blackout. Just months ago, Sisi boasted that the state was operating through a “digital computing mind”—a high-tech brain, guiding a new, smarter Egypt. This week’s fiasco showed how easily that digital brain can be knocked offline by a single spark in a 98-year-old building in downtown Cairo.