Tag: egypt

The Earthquake of 2012: Episode Three

Friend of the blog Maria Golia, a longtime Cairo resident and author of the fantastic Cairo: City of Sand, recently sent me a wonderful short story imagining an earthquake in 2012, 20 years after the devastating one that hit Egypt in 1992. We will be running it in three episodes, with a few links added to provide background for those not familiar with the references to Cairo landmarks, events and personalities. This story and its characters are strictly fictional. Only the city is real.

Following the earthquake of April 21, 2012, Cairo is in an unusually tumultuous turmoil. In the first episode, an earthquake devastated Cairo landmarks (not all of which will be missed) and trapped assorted dignitaries at an interfaith summit, including the president’s son, in a cave in the Muqattam cliffs. Suddenly, it was no longer clear who was in charge. In episode two, the president vanished – then reappeared. Here’s what happened.

The Earthquake of 2012: Episode Three

     The story must have leaked through a house servant or the president’s driver himself, but the city was ablaze with it. Seems he washed up on the Island of Dahab, which means gold, a speck of land, farmed today as it has been for centuries, an anachronism in the Nile not far from downtown. Back in the 90s, the government built a bridge that sunk its oafish pylons there and left the bulk of the island in shadow. The people rose in protest but were quickly pressured down.

 When Mohamed ibn Salem saw someone draped over his fishing boat, he rushed to help. He called his sons and they dragged him to the house. (They were weak, you see, protein-weak, and couldn’t lift him.) The sons were small and Mohammed a frail man of forty though he looked much older in the newspaper. He and his family nursed the president for nearly a week and it never occurred to them or their neighbors who their houseguest might be. Without his toupee, shoulder pads and bullet proof vest (which he’d shed as soon as he realized he’d been taken by the current) and seen full-on, as opposed to the stylized profile he’d presented for so long, he was unrecognizable, even to himself, and it was just as well. Had they realized who it was there’s no telling what they might have done, but ransoming and eating were among the possibilities.

     No sooner had the president regained consciousness when he realized his predicament. He thanked his hosts in the county-accented Arabic of his youth, and said he was a water carrier, the poorest of the country’s poor. He begged Mohammed to drop him on the mainland, nothing more.

-I’ll just be going, he said, be out of your way, you don’t need another mouth to feed, a useless old man…..

-But no, uncle, stay with us, we beg you stay! Such was the exchange according to Mohammed, who became a national celebrity.

      The president smuggled himself into the Pink House with the help of a loyal kitchen servant, well, somewhat loyal, of a truth the man was a deaf-mute and very old. The president’s wife was ecstatic, especially since their son was about to be freed. His position with the others in the cave had grown precarious, several days without food though they’d managed to insert a thin hose to supply water. The cliff was weakened and had to be supported as the blockage was removed. When local efforts failed, the American president kindly donated demolition experts to blow the lid delicately off the cave. She related this news and they rejoiced, the family would be united again, against all odds! Of course, we didn’t know all this at first, only where the president had been found, and by whom, that he wasn’t dead but had been through an awful lot.

      The denouement came less than a week later. I was home, sipping tea, when the doorbell rang. It was the postman bearing the news that Egypt’s longest standing ruler sine Mohammed Ali had finally gone to his heavenly reward. I stood at the door, stunned, and – I confess – weeping. Although people had wished the old man dead, made oaths and bets and dreamt of it, many shed a tear when he actually went. Yet it wasn’t for him we were crying, but for the years we spent in his parentheses, years we felt in our hearts were never really good but did little to make any better. We’d gotten used to him and to cursing him, as part of a comforting daily routine. So long as he was around he could be blamed, hated and feared. We even took comfort in his tenacity for it granted a continuity otherwise absent in modern life. The old man was a constant, a prime number, divisible only by himself, and our fates were bound up with his. And what would better be exactly? Well, no one really knew.

     Overnight, downtown was cordoned off for the funeral. By mid-morning, soldiers by the thousands lined every major street. A tent of hand-stitched arabesque covered one end of Liberation Square, hung with hundreds of lamps, ample wattage for the video cameras, and filled with gilt chairs, beaten bronze coffee tables and carpets from Shiraz. There were dozens of bow-tied waiters, steaming samovars and a famous blind sheikh to recite the Quran. The president’s wife and son arrived, she looking drawn, and he no more morose than usual. The tent was full of those on whom the president lavished his favors; distraught friends and colleagues numbered in the thousands. But the people, your average Mohammed and Leila, stayed away in droves. It was an embarrassment, not to mention a challenge for the TV cameramen assigned to film the loving citizenry, mad with grief. Oh there were a few, there always are, men tearing at their shirts and beating their chests, old women wailing, the usual commotion, but it was contained and stagy, nor did it last very long.

     The well-heeled who attended the funeral took the customary opportunity to show allegiance, seal deals and be seen, but they were circumspect and shifty-eyed. Men perspired beneath the lamps. The women stayed in a separate tent, their perfume barely masking a note of rancid unease. The ministers, each with a nucleus of private guards, circulated randomly, as if to avoid intersection. But a couple of them had the bad taste and judgment to argue. Fortunately the TV cameras were busy with a contingent of sheikhs and the Coptic pope. They arrived practically at the same time and were warmly welcomed by the president’s son. Meanwhile waiters eavesdropped, made their assessments and passed them on to the street.

     Throughout the day rumors flew, of coups and assassinations, foreign and divine interventions. Instead of news, the state TV broadcast the beloved black and white musicals of the forties, in a bid to keep folks home and quiet. But we’d seen those films too many times before. The hero, poor but handsome with a beautiful voice, wins the rich girl’s love then dies of consumption. Or else the heroine, a goodhearted but slandered dancer, is rehabilitated, i.e. married. Or else a trio of buffoons yammer and slap each other for an hour and a half. Slapping, dancing, and dying – people were sick of it, of being bought cheap, like kids with candy, of being talked down to or not at all.

     The funeral tent was dismantled by evening, and half the soldiers sent away, which still left many thousands. Nevertheless people filled the streets as they normally would, to window shop or run errands. But that night something started happening – more people went out, many, many more. They didn’t drive, just came down from their houses, spreading through the streets wherever there was room. By midnight, Liberation Square was full, as was every open space in the city, not packed, but milling with humans instead of cars. It felt like a park without trees. People stood around or sat where they could, drinking sodas, eating pumpkin seeds or smoking. And naturally they got to talking, not about what would happen, but about what they’d decided they would not, under any circumstances, continue to withstand.

    The next day they kept talking, and no one, or almost anyone, went to work. Half the city was already unemployed, but it made a difference. Government factory workers started it, and an army of civil servants of every stripe followed suit. So did teachers and students and shopkeepers. Everyone just stopped. Cafes overflowed. Muezzins abandoned their zawiyyas; the streets were too full of milling crowds for prayers. The weather was ridiculously beautiful, crystal clear with great fluffy clouds of a kind rarely seen in Cairo. People basked in peaceful uncertainty, reassured by their great concordant numbers. Egyptians had never believed in their power, only their wit. But that was before the earthquake of 2012.

     There’s a word, kairos, ancient Greek for ‘right or opportune moment’. It doesn’t have anything to do with this city, which is named for the planet Mars. But it described those days well: ‘a passing instant when an opening appears which must be driven through with force…’   And so it was, quietly, not with blood, but inertia and the conviction born of a single shared and inarguable truth: that enough, at some point, is enough, and that this luminous point, this transformative moment – was now.

The End

 


 

Pre-order Maria Golia’s new book on the history of photography in Egypt:

“Photography and Egypt (Exposures)” (Maria Golia)

 

Photography and Egypt describes the forces behind photography’s development in the most photographed place on earth, the social and political realities the practice helped shape and the enduring iconography it gave to the world.Photography and Egypt describes the forces behind photography’s development in the most photographed place on earth, the social and political realities the practice helped shape and the enduring iconography it gave to the world.

 

Attacks on Ba’hais in Egypt

I wanted to mention it yesterday when the story broke, but there has been a nasty attack against a Ba’hai community near Sohag in Upper Egypt. The incident appears to have been sparked by the appearance of a local community leader on TV, where he was attacked by a hack for the state newspaper al-Gomhouriya, who called for him to be killed. The same pathetic hack later praised the attacks on the Ba’hais in an article, showing how deeply xenophobic, sectarian, ultra-Salafist thinking has permeated state institutions. This man should be fired and put on trial for inciting violence (Egypt has no law against religious incitation, something I’ve long thought they should implement and use against any intolerance and particularly Islamists who advocated takfir). More details in a press release from Egyptian human rights groups below.

Continue reading Attacks on Ba’hais in Egypt

The Earthquake of 2012: Episode Two

Friend of the blog Maria Golia, a longtime Cairo resident and author of the fantastic Cairo: City of Sand, recently sent me a wonderful short story imagining an earthquake in 2012, 20 years after the devastating one that hit Egypt in 1992. We will be running it in three episodes, with a few links added to provide background for those not familiar with the references to Cairo landmarks, events and personalities. This story and its characters are strictly fictional. Only the city is real.

 

In the first episode, an earthquake devastated Cairo landmarks (not all of which will be missed) and trapped assorted dignitaries at an interfaith summit, including the president’s son, in a cave in the Muqattam cliffs. Suddenly, it was no longer clear who was in charge…

 

The Earthquake of 2012: Episode Two     

 

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     Within days of the Sham el Nessim quake Cairo was back to what we call normal. What are a few more mountains of rubble, or collapsing buildings to us? We’re used to it. Cairo is a house of cards, and even force majeure has a hard time keeping up with it. It should be said, however, that the earthquake wasn’t terribly strong. Cairo’s muddy foundations amplified the tremors’ reach, but softened the impact they carried; the movement was languorous, the destruction almost thoughtful.    ‘Misr il Mahrousa!’ people declared, meaning ‘Egypt the protected!’, and there was awe in their voices, and pride. They were shaken, yes, but sprightly too, because things were everywhere changing. The earthquake was the great leveler; no one was immune to its whims. It gave us heroes and villains, atoms of good and of evil, and several flavors in between.

 

     A deluge of fresh anecdotes washed away the stale ones, along with the jokes that had come to rest too frequently on the size of the president’s member and its favored destination up some poor Egyptian arse. The crassness was replaced with the old subtlety, stories with twisting tentacles and tasty ends. The people provided both theater and audience with the city as protagonist, and the scenarios beat anything on TV. Indeed, I’ve kept the best for last, how the lord gave the earth inspiration to swallow the Old Man himself.

 

     It happened as he and his wife starred in yet another propagandist spectacle, scheduled for broadcast directly after that of their son. This one took place on the Nile, now as ever exploited by Egypt’s rulers as a fitting backdrop for their august persons. In the river’s old, unfettered days, when there was nothing but palm groves and fields and a few stranded islands, it must have been grand to see a sultan sail by. The fellahin must have lined the banks to watch and their children surely waved. The televised Nile, urban and indifferent, has been so coupled with deceitful political rhetoric no one pays it any mind. At best it’s sentimental, clichéd footage of the water lit by fireworks, with the national anthem as soundtrack, ‘Egypt!! My country! My Blood!’ The irony, as everyone knows, is that most of the riverbank was sold to foreigners to build fancy hotels that the locals only get in if they work there. Yes, they made the Nile look tacky and put it out of bounds, one of their greatest unprosecuted crimes.

 

     And so it seemed fitting, that on that fated evening the president and his wife were being photographed prior to inaugurating a manmade (or rather, crony-made) island in the center of the Nile, another obscene tourist village that further disrupted the once mighty river’s flow. They’d arrived at the presidential yacht and paused to shake a few hands, the old man cunningly-lit so that only his forceful forehead, proboscis and jutting chin were in evidence, not the wrinkles or the right eye, drooping from a clandestine stroke.

 

     Fireworks filled the sky and then the ground began to tremble. How their legs must have quivered, especially his, since they were uncommonly spindly and long. The old man’s hand shot reflexively to his toupee. He clutched his wife, who was meanwhile wrenched away by a body guard. He’d raised a foot and was about to grasp the yacht’s boarding-ramp rail when he found his foot hovering above the abyss, his hand closing on emptiness. The yacht, responding to some alteration in the current, had moved. Thrown off balance he toppled into the water. The prime minister stood behind him, an ancient gentleman, there was nothing he could do.

 

    To their credit, several bodyguards waded in almost at once, that is, after they removed their watches and jackets. Egyptians tend to be poor swimmers, which may explain their hesitation. The president’s wife, that angelic woman, administered first aid to the prime minister who’d had a heart attack, and lay dying. Three dozen mobile phones were pressed to action. An ambulance arrived and then a helicopter, then two more. Alas, the impossible had occurred. The president was missing in action, no where to be found, although the next day an intensive search conducted by his private guard yielded his flak-jacket and a pair of Prada loafers with the price tag, in Euros, still attached.

 

     When the story went round people thought it was a joke, and started warning each other about crocodiles in the plumbing. They were understandably skeptical – how could you lose something that Big? He was dead, surely, and his sidekicks were hiding it while they regrouped. When the last president was shot in broad daylight with thousands of witnesses, they still tried to conceal his death. This was the opinion of a pragmatic majority. Nevertheless, his absence, as it lengthened into days, fired the imagination. Where was he? Who was next? Nothing happened.

 

     They’re waiting for the son to come out of the cave, some said, like Lazarus. Others expected a coup to be strategically executed precisely before he emerged. Taxi drivers advanced the theory that the whole drowning story was made up. The president and his wife had probably sped off to Switzerland, where they were thought to keep fat accounts. Members of the intelligentsia disagreed, declaring that it was all true, a purposeful manipulation of the public subconscious, that he would rise like a latter- day Osiris, rescued piece by piece by his diligent wife, a menopausal Isis. Horus, the son, was waiting in the wings, could anything be more perfect, more Egyptian? For once, oddly enough, the marginalized, censorship-crazed crack pots were nearly right.

 

     La ville entière was abuzz with the latest developments in the Pink House as the presidential palace is otherwise known, due to the color of its paint and the perception that, like most Egyptian households, a woman was in charge. Though the president’s wife had fooled a credulous minority with her public persona (the radiant and maternal peoples’ saint) she proved even cooler under pressure than her greatest detractors feared. But the extent to which she steered the crosscurrents of adversity ever ambitiously, unswervingly in the favor of her son was admirable; how she threatened, maneuvered and begged her way out of the tight pink corner the earthquake had painted. She won time, which is everything, though it was only a few days.

 

     Between the warring ministers of interior and defense, both ruthless with armed troops at their disposal, and the appearance of a wildly popular ibn al balad named al-Gabbar, there would have been bloodshed, had it not been for her maneuvering and the imprint of her husband’s boot- heel on the foreheads of the old blackguards. Besides, it would look bad in the foreign media if they went for each other’s throats straight away. There was time for that, they could afford the niceties. What’s more they were all, to a man, certain that the president was feeding the fishes, even now, as they mopped their perspiring heads in the growing heat.

 

     This al-Gabbar had purportedly risked his life on numerous occasions to save people stuck in collapsed buildings, scaling the rubble, carrying the wounded victims on his back. Indefatigable and fearless was al-Gabbar and good looking, by all accounts, a handsome open face and a vigorous physique, a fellah, a farmer, concise and humorous of speech. Although he wasn’t particularly religious, his name, under the circumstances, was seen by some as a prophecy. Al-Gabbar, means ‘the compeller’, he who repairs all broken things. Al-Gabbar may have been a brave hearted human, but he was also vain. Amongst those who paid him tribute ( including several exceedingly attractive upper-crust girls) was a clique of prominent sheikhs. Garbled reports were carried back to the cabinet that a new religious leader had captured the people’s favor.

 

     Of course it wasn’t true, and al-Gabbar’s exploits soon joined the tales of other equally heroic and un-ambitious citizens. But this was the story the religious agitators schemed to convey, a red herring to put the fractious and befuddled ministers off their track. They were better organized than anyone, even the foreign donors. Their relief centers and soup kitchens were shut down daily but they just opened them up, with the people’s help, somewhere else. Now they were waiting for the big boys to make their move, a coup d’etat, or an unlawful succession, it didn’t matter. Whatever happened they’d rouse the people they’d fed, clothed and sheltered to take their rightful place in the nation’s governance under god.   

 

   The ministers caught wind of this and didn’t like it. But they didn’t like each other either, or the president, who’d they’d been lying to all their lives. And they couldn’t say why they’d lied like that, almost from the very beginning. Whatever the reason, they blamed him for it more than themselves. They were thrilled to the tips of their manicured toes to think he’d died and they’d survived him. They’d come to the Pink House for tea with the bereaved, soon-to-be -official widow to discuss funerary rearrangements – something spectacular, they’d already taken collections and were prepared to supply thousands of weeping spectators.

 

     Imagine their dismay when he reappeared, bruised and bald, but smiling like a prizefighter in a terry cloth robe and a towel around his neck!

 

Don’t miss the final episode of ‘The Earthquake of 2012’.

 

Pre-order Maria Golia’s new book on the history of photography in Egypt:

 

“Photography and Egypt (Exposures)” (Maria Golia)

FROM THE PUBLISHER: Egypt tends to conjure up images in our mind of the Pyramids and the temples, the Nile and the desert. Early photographs of Egypt took the ancient monuments as their primary subjects, and these have been hugely influential in constructing our view of the country. But while Egypt and its monuments have been regularly photographed over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by foreigners, little is known about Egyptian photographers themselves. This book examines both, considering images from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, taking in studio portraits, landscapes, photo-journalism, and the work of contemporary Egyptian photo artists. Two forces drove photography’s early development in Egypt: its links to archeology, and the accelerating effects of archaeological photographs on the nascent tourism industry. Maria Golia examines these twin drives, as well as looking closely at the work of early Egyptian photographers such as Colonel Mohammad Sadiq, Mohammad Badr and Atiyya Gaddis, many previously unknown to a Western audience. She discusses court photography and shows how aside from commissioning portraits, the elite photographed their palaces and gardens, which were considered feats of aesthetics and engineering. She also examines how photography was employed for propaganda purposes, such as in images of celebrated soldiers, workers and farmers; as well as how studio-based photography was used to depict the growing Egyptian middle class. In 1983 the author was arrested for taking pictures in Egypt, and spent the night in a Suez jail; attempts to take pictures there are still often met with resistance. Today’s young photographic artists use the medium both to celebrate ‘ordinary lives’ and to indict the political and social conditions that contribute to their hardship. Photography bears witness to this history as much as it helps to create it. Illustrated with a rich, surprising variety of images, many previously unknown in the West, “Photography and Egypt” is the first book to relate the story of Egypt’s rapport with photography into one concise and highly readable account.

 

Muslim Brothers back 6th April strike

Oh, Brothers:

“CAIRO (AFP) – Egypt’s opposition Muslim Brotherhood on Thursday called on citizens to join a national strike protesting the policies of President Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled the country for nearly three decades.
The Islamist group ‘calls on the people of Egypt on April 6 to express their anger and objection to the policies of the regime which has squandered the country’s riches, neglected its national security and removed Egypt from its role as leader and pioneer (of the region),’ a statement said.
Citizens were called on to strike ‘using all peaceful channels and abiding by constitutional and legal restrictions while safeguarding public and private property from damage during these peaceful activities.’

Does this mark a departure from the ambivalence about the 6 April national strike we had seen in recent weeks? Does it make the 6 April protest likely to be more successful? By what standards do we measure that success? Difficult questions all, but what this indicates to me is that the Brothers’ leadership is taking to heart the writings of fellow traveler and Islamist thinker Tareq al-Bishri on civil disobedience.

I am reminded of a lecture I attended a few days ago by the talented Brothers-watcher Tawfiq Aclimandos, a historian who has unearthed many interesting aspects of the relationship between the Free Officers and the Brothers in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and followed their policies in recent years. Like another Egyptian expert on Islamism, Dia Rashwan, Aclimandos believes current General Guide Mahdi Akef is among the most important leaders the MB have had since founder Hassan al-Banna, taking the movement in a new direction. (Rashwan places only former Guide Omar Telmissany, who rebuilt the MB in the 1970s, ahead of Akef, Aclimandos believes Akef may be even more important.) Their participation in the strike, after the back-and-forth of the last year or two, will be a test of how influential the Brothers really are.

On US democracy promotion in Egypt

Analysis: Democracy in Egypt appears to wane:

“Four years ago, the United States talked about two laboratories for democracy in the Middle East: Iraq and Egypt.

Egypt was supposed to be the easier one. But now it’s battered Iraq that has shown democratic advances, while Egypt seems to be going backward with President Hosni Mubarak’s government solidifying its hold on the levers of power.

Still, Egypt is hoping for improved ties with the United States under President Barack Obama after the Bush administration called for reform by Mubarak and after years of strains over the staunch U.S. ally’s human rights record.

The Obama administration has already hinted it won’t hinge its relationship with Egypt on human rights demands, moving away from former President George W. Bush’s ambitious — or overreaching, as some in the region felt — claims to seek a democratic transformation in the region.”

Already some people in Cairo are nostalgic (or have been nostalgic for several years) for that 2004-2005 moment when the Bush administration was publicly, relentlessly, critical of Egypt’s lack of political reform. Ironically Obama, with his charisma, could make an even better democracy promoter than Bush, whose neo-conservative version of democracy promotion appeared like a barely concealed fig leaf for a pro-interventionist, pro-Israeli Middle East policy. The problem remains the same: how do you craft a successful democracy-promotion policy? Can you do so when you have a strategic alliance with a repressive state? I think government-to-government pressure has limited effectiveness, especially when Egypt is such as a great counter-terrorism and regional diplomacy ally. Or when you’re unwilling to reconsider over $1bn of military aid that subsidizes your own military-industrial complex and irrigates the backbone of the regime. (sorry for the terrible mixed metaphor.)

The way to go may be lobbying in the US, EU against businesses involved in Egypt and naming and shaming politicians that support Egypt. But even then you run the risk of becoming the useful idiot of those who claim to be concerned about democracy in Egypt but are merely cynically adding a card to play in regional politics.

Pettiness

Today’s main state-owned Egyptian dailies are headlining President Mubarak’s visit to… an agricultural project owned by the army in Sharq al-Owaynat. Because that’s such a more important story than the Doha summit, which he’s not attending.

Pettiness is one of the defining characteristics of authoritarian political systems: you see it everywhere, from the arbitrary treatment of political opponents like Ayman Nour to the veiled and actual threats made against rebellious parts of the establishment (such as judges, who had their bonuses and benefits cut when they were rebelling in 2006).

Mubarak will not go to Doha Arab summit

News has just come out that Hosni Mubarak will not attend the upcoming Doha Arab League summit, suggesting that recent talks to repair the Arab rift during the Gaza war have not borne fruit. Qatar has not been open to rapprochement with Egypt from the start, and efforts to lure Syria away are not working to Egypt’s satisfaction. One major victim of a failed Arab reconciliation could be the Palestinian reconciliation process.

Update: Dina Ezzat suggests the Egypt-Qatar rift is about Sudan/Darfur as well as the Palestinians:

The summit, however, is unlikely to escape being the scene of squabbles over managing the reconciliation process between the Darfur leaders and Al-Bashir’s regime. While Qatar is determined to pursue earlier efforts to conclude a comprehensive peace deal on that front other Arab countries — especially Egypt — are determined to deny Doha control over the issue. As a result the summit may not issue a resolution with clear language on the Darfur-Khartoum reconciliation process.

The anticipated Egyptian-Qatari confrontation in Doha next week will not be confined to the management of the Darfur peace process. The diplomatic tug-of-war between the two countries that has continued for 12 months, especially over Palestinian reconciliation, is likely to cast a shadow across the Doha summit. With President Mubarak unlikely — so far — to attend, sending the foreign, or at best, prime minister, Qatar may not be so keen to avoid some squabbling over the text of resolutions to be adopted by the summit on the Palestinian issue. Sources say that Qatar has already suggested to several Arab countries that there is a need to break the “Egyptian monopoly” over Palestinian reconciliation. While this Qatari effort may not succeed — as some Qatari officials acknowledge — it would certainly impact on already tense Egyptian-Qatari relations.

Update II: AP has a write-up saying:

Hosni Mubarak’s decision, which came two days before the summit starts, already throws major doubts on its chances for success as the organization’s foreign ministers pleaded for unity in the face of threats against its members.

ABC: Three Israeli attacks on Sudan, not just one

Exclusive: Three Israeli Airstrikes Against Sudan – Political Radar:

“ABC News’ Luis Martinez reports: Israel has conducted three military strikes against targets in Sudan since January in an effort to prevent what were believed to be Iranian weapons shipments from reaching Hamas in the Gaza Strip, ABC News has learned.

Earlier this week, CBSNews.com was the first to report that Israel had conducted an airstrike in January against a convoy carrying weapons north into Egypt to be smuggled into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

But actually, since January, Israel has conducted a total of three military strikes against smugglers transporting what were believed to be Iranian weapons shipments  destined  for Gaza, a U.S. official told ABC News. 

The information matches recent reports from Sudanese officials of two airstrikes in the desert of eastern Sudan and the sinking of a ship in the Red Sea carrying weapons.”

Questions that come to mind: Saudi and Egyptian radars on the Red Sea must have seen planes, how long have they known? What kind of collaboration is there on this? What logistical support from the US?