Special to USAfricaonline.com In Egypt, the North African country which witnessed the
violent killing of its former president President Anwar
Sadat on national tv in1981 by Islamic militants, the
continuing fears of another attempt happened September 6,
1999 as presidential guards shot and killed a man who grazed
President Hosni Mubarak with a sharp instrument as he drove
through the northern town of Port Said. According to an
official statement: "While the president was waving ...
through the car's window, a person approached the motorcade
holding a sharp tool and inflicted a light wound'' on the
arm. The attack occurred in Port Said, 180km (about 100 miles)
northeast of Cairo at the northern end of the Suez Canal,
where Mubarak was touring business and industrial projects.
According to the Cairo Times, police reports say the
attacker has no connections with any militant groups. According to an Interior Ministry, the attacker leaped
over a barricade and jumped onto the president's car as he
was driving through an industrial zone in the Suez Canal
city. Mubarak had the window open to wave to the crowd, and
both he and one of his bodyguards received cuts in the hand
before the assailant was felled by four bullets. State
television reported that the president had his wound
sterilized, before proceding to a conference room to deliver
a speech on the economy as planned. Mubarak is currently
touring the country prior to the 26 September presidential
referendum. The ministry identified the attacker as Hussein Mahmoud
Suliman, 40, known as "Al Arabi," a clothes trader from Port
Said's Souq al Arab market. The report said that he was
known for his "irrational behavior," but had no known ties
to "any organized movements." Mubarak is exceptionally
well-protected. During the militants' seven-year campaign
against the government, only one of many alleged plots
against his life was reported to have gotten close to
him--the 1995 ambush of his motorcade in Addis Ababa, from
where the president escaped unscathed even though ten
bullets hit his car. Mubarak also survived the 1981 assault
on the presidential reviewing stand in which his
predecessor, Anwar Al Sadat, was killed. The AP reported that Mubarak's wound was treated with a
disinfectant before the president, who has survived at least
three assassination attempts, went on to deliver a speech,
the statement said. One of his guards was hit by a stray
bullet and wounded. Egyptian television later showed
videotape of crowds on the streets of Port Said cheering
Mubarak, but cut away as shots rang out and did not show the
attack. The next pictures showed Mubarak at the meeting hall
cheered on by supporters. Mubarak said nothing about the
attack in a speech devoted to economic development. The most serious of the attacks on Mubarak came in June
1995, when Muslim militants fired on his limousine as it was
driving through Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His predecessor,
President Anwar Sadat, was assassinated in 1981 by Islamic
militants angered at his having signed a peace treaty with
Israel in 1979. Mubarak, who was Sadat's vice president,
became president after the assassination. Mubarak is
preparing for a presidential referendum September 26 that he
is expected to win. It would be his fourth six-year term in
office. 
NORTH
AFRICA
Assassination attempt on Egyptian
Mubarak foiled
by Chido Nwangwu, USAfricaonline.com with reports from
Cairo Times and AP
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