General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi: top brass ready to defend the people

Egyptian military chief who issued ultimatum to Mohamed Morsi has history of Islamist sympathy, so motives are questioned

Ian Black, Middle East editor
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 2 July 2013 

"....Sisi, a career soldier, was head of military intelligence and the youngest member of the 19-strong Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. But despite coming from the heart of the security establishment he had a reputation for being sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood — the reason, many Egyptians assumed, Morsi chose him for the job. Sisi is said to be a religious man, and his wife, unusually, wears the full niqab (face veil.).....

But Sisi also attracted criticism for appearing to defend the behaviour of the armed forces in detaining and beating women protestors who were subjected to strip searches and "virginity tests" and threatened with prostitution charges.....

Sisi, an infantry officer, was trained at the UK Joint Command and Staff College and did a masters degree at the US army's War College in Pennsylvania.....

He is also described as enjoying close relations with the US military as well as Saudi Arabia, where he served as a military attache. Inside the army, some critics reportedly believe he has been too soft on the Brotherhood.

Last December, the new Egyptian consititution gave the military greater autonomy than it had ever enjoyed before but relations with the Brotherhood worsened as public disenchantment with Morsi grew and the army polished its own PR. Sisi warned of intervention a week before the 30 Juneprotests. Now he is at the centre of a high stakes struggle for the future of Egypt."