Egypt’s Foreign Minister confirms: there was an assassination attempt on Omar Suleiman

Not now, but during the height of the revolution. They say it was a group in a stolen ambulance who riddled Suleiman’s car with bullets. This happened in Heliopolis, the home neighborhood of much of the ruling elite (and where Plato supposedly went to study geometry after the death of Socrates), out towards the airport.

No word as to who was behind this. It’s an open question whether this would have made things better or worse, but one suspects worse. So, maybe it’s a good thing he survived it. A successful assassination might have been a good excuse for a bloodier crackdown. “The Muslim Brotherhood did it,” etc.

Speaking of which, some Egyptians I know reject the suggestion that Mubarak was more humane than Qaddafi (though all agree he’s more sane, of course). Some Egyptians say that Mubarak did plan to bomb Tahrir Square, and that the army simply refused.

There has to be a bit more to the story than that. The F-16’s that buzzed Tahrir were under Mubarak’s direct control through the Presidential Guard, not under normal Army control.