Wed 26 February 2020:
Egypt’s ousted president Hosni Mubarak has died at the age of 91, nine years after he was removed from power during the Arab Spring.
The former air force officer was removed from power in 2011 by the military after 18-day mass protests that saw thousands flood into the capital’s Tahrir Square and 900 Egyptians killed in a violent crackdown.
He was arrested two months later and spent several years in prison and military hospitals as he stood trial for the deaths of anti-government protesters.
The former president underwent surgery on January 23 and was photographed with his grandson, Omar Alaa Mubarak, as he recovered. Over the weekend, his wealthy businessman son, Alaa, revealed the former president was in an intensive care.
State TV said only that he had health complications but offered no other details.
Egypt’s armed forces today described him as a ‘war hero’ and he is set to be given a military funeral.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi offered condolences and praised Mubarak’s service during the 1973 war with Israel, when he commanded the air force.
‘The Presidency mourns with great sorrow the former President of the Republic, Mr. Mohammed Hosni Mubarak,’ he said in a statement.
It referred to Mubarak as ‘one of the leaders and heroes of the glorious October war, as he assumed command of the Air Force during the war that restored dignity and pride to the Arab nation.’
Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas hailed him as a supporter of the Palestinian cause and mourned the death ‘with great sorrow’.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed ‘deep sorrow’ over Mubarak’s death. ‘President Mubarak, a personal friend of mine, was a leader who guided his people to peace and security, to peace with Israel,’ Netanyahu said.
Mubarak was a stalwart U.S. ally, a bulwark against Islamic militancy and guardian of Egypt’s peace with Israel.
But to the hundreds of thousands of young Egyptians who rallied for 18 days of unprecedented street protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and elsewhere in 2011, Mubarak was a latter-day pharaoh and a symbol of autocratic misrule.
His overthrow, however, plunged the country into years of chaos and uncertainty, and set up a power struggle between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood group that he had long outlawed.
Barely two years after his ouster, Abdel Fattah el-Sissi led the military overthrow of Egypt’s first freely elected president and rolled back freedoms gained in the 2011 uprising.
Born in May 1928, Mubarak was vice president on October 14, 1981, when his mentor, President Anwar Sadat, was assassinated by Islamic extremists while reviewing a military parade.
Seated next to Sadat, Mubarak escaped with a minor hand injury as gunmen sprayed the reviewing stand with bullets.
Eight days later, the brawny former air force commander was sworn in as president, promising continuity and order.
Over the next three decades, as the region was convulsed by one crisis after another, Mubarak was seen as a steady hand and a reliable U.S. partner against Islamic extremism.
He sent troops as part of the U.S.-led coalition in the 1990-1991 Gulf war and contributed to efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Within Egypt he presided over slow but steady economic growth and largely kept the country out of armed conflicts after decades of war with Israel.
Unlike his predecessors, both Sadat and Egypt’s first modern president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Mubarak pursued no grand ideology beyond stability and economic development.
Over the years, Mubarak tinkered with reform but shunned major change, presenting himself as Egypt’s sole protection against Islamic militancy and sectarian division.
The U.S., particularly under President George W. Bush, pressed for democratic reforms but was wary of alienating a key ally.
The failure to fulfill repeated promises of change steadily deepened public despair. Those seeking a democratic future were dismayed to see Mubarak making apparent moves to groom his businessman son, Gamal Mubarak, for a dynastic succession.
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