Egyptian GID: Facts and Fictions

Cairo's Undercover Strongman
Meet Murad Muwafi, the most important man in Egypt you’ve never heard of
BY MAGDY SAMAAN

FEBRUARY 3, 2012

CAIRO --

When Hosni Mubarak fell from power in February 2011, many elements of his regime remained in place -- at least at first. In the year since then, the Egyptian army, the police, and the business elite have struggled to cope with the tide of revolutionary change washing over the Arab world’s most populous country.

Not one of these institutions has made it through the process entirely intact. The deeply unpopular national police force has seen its authority relentlessly eroded by protestors and the press. Mubarak-era crony capitalists have landed in jail, their old deals under fire from rivals or the courts. And the military, which has ruled the country in the guise of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), has become the focus of popular anger as it struggles to maintain its control. Now the Muslim Brotherhood, which has ridden recent electoral victories to a dominant position in the new parliament, is set to advance its own agenda, thus adding a fresh element of unpredictability to the struggle for power.

Yet one pillar of the old regime has survived the turmoil with its authority intact -- if not expanded. It is the General Intelligence Directorate (GID), the country’s most powerful intelligence agency. As the elderly generals of the SCAF have only fanned the flames of discontent with their clumsy maneuverings in recent months, the GID, which reigns supreme among Egypt’s competing security services, has gradually emerged as something like the brain trust of the leadership. Unlike the ruling generals, its officers act outside of the limelight, their workings largely obscure to the media and the public. Its role has enabled the GID (commonly known in Arabic as the Mukhabarat) to capitalize on the uncertainty that plagues other reigning institutions. As a result, the man who runs it -- an inscrutable 61-year-old by the name of Murad Muwafi -- is now poised to assume a key role in the next phase of high-level intrigue.

For Full Story: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/03/cairos_undercover_strongman

The article is a mix of facts and fictions; alike 007 series.. Not only repeats the short fiction of AlAswani on the breakfast deal between MB & SCAF; but also define deformed identity for GID.. Lots of scrutiny is required, to avoid further confusion on the severely-confusing Egypt..

GID is a 1952 child; which was structured to safeguard both presidential regime and establishment.. GID in its fierce fights with Mossad and its aliens; had developed complex mechanism to sustain its mandate and operations against any breach.. Sadat was almost successful to restructure it, but 1973 had brought back the GID’s patriotic substances; which had slowly unnoticed-grown..

Mubarak use of Suleiman was not by choice, but by default.. Muwafi (or others) are ruled by a code of conduction that sustains the Egyptian pillars of national security, despite any political turmoil or shake.. This is what get GID strength and draw its role in past, present and future politics of Egypt..