Zamalek: is the worst yet to come?

After being trapped inside for about 10 hours by last night’s events, I decided to slip out and get a big, hot breakfast at the Marriott, which is on the Nile not far from here. The breakfast hit the spot, but it was almost a mistake… the soldiers barely let me back onto my street.

No businesses are damaged; at least the Egyptians aren’t rioting against their own buildings, it is just one building that they want to damage. The part of the street where the mob was assembled last night is covered with debris and broken glass, but it seems to be the glass of broken bottles, since no store windows are damaged. And in most of Zamalek, normal light Friday morning commerce is still underway.

But in all other respects, Brazil Street is a war zone, and I happen to live at the epicenter of it.

Last night’s hundreds of soldiers now runs easily into the thousands. At every intersection, including those leading to side streets, an armed barricade can be found. (I doubt any of them have guns, other than maybe a handful of top officers; a shooting incident would not be helpful here.) It’s shields and helmets and clubs. They’re all silent, and somehow they all look rather poor.

Most worryingly, there are also dozens of ambulances parked nearby. There are still a few fire trucks right next to the Algerian Embassy, and now dozens upon dozens of army personnel trucks.

There happened to be one open store on my barricaded home street, and I made sure to buy a couple days’ worth of food supplies, because it’s by no means clear that I will be able or willing to leave this building again for the next day or two.

Perhaps nothing will happen, but I fear this is the calm before the storm. People will now be either sleeping off last night, or headed for Friday prayers. Nothing bad ever happens on Friday morning, the holy time of the week. But after Friday prayers is a different story. Bad things do often happen immediately after that.

It looks to me like the Egyptian Interior Ministry, or whoever is in charge of this operation (and it’s surely them), is preparing for the worst-case scenario of an all-out mob assault on the Algerian Embassy.

Here is a photo of the army trucks lined up in front of the Embassy right now. And they stretch on for blocks in both directions: