‘US told Morsi to go an hour before his ouster’

July 7, 2013

Washington, Jul 7: U.S. national security advisor Susan E. Rice had told deposed Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi’s team that the president would leave office an hour before his ouster by the military, a report says.

An Arab foreign minister had called Morsi as an emissary of the United States to give him one final chance to make changes to his cabinet to end the standoff with the military, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

Senior advisors with Morsi said the minister, not named in the report, made the call several hours before the announcement of the president’s ouster by the military on Wednesday to ask for the appointment of a new prime minister and cabinet.

The new cabinet would have assumed all legislative powers and replaced Morsi’s appointed provincial governors.

Morsi’s top foreign policy adviser, Essam al-Haddad, who was with Morsi when the call came through, then left the room to call U.S. ambassador to Egypt Anne W. Patterson to notify Washington that Morsi had refused to comply, the U.S. daily said.

Upon returning to the room, Haddad said he had called Susan Rice, Morsi’s aides said.

“Mother just told us that we will stop playing in one hour,” read a text message sent by an aide to his associate, referring to “Mother America,” the Egyptians’ sarcastic name for the Western power that has for years supported the Egyptian military with billions of dollars in aid.

Gen. Abdul-Fattah al-Sisi, the Egyptian defense minister and the country’s top military commander, announced on Wednesday that the army had removed Morsi from power. After the TV announcement, the military said Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically-elected president, had "failed to meet the demands of the Egyptian people."

Morsi was the Muslim Brotherhood’s envoy in talks with the military, represented by General Sisi, following the overthrow of Egypt’s long-time ruler Hosni Mubarak in early 2011. Later the relationship between them developed, according to a senior Brotherhood official close to Morsi, to the level that the president “trusted him.”

In a surprise move last summer, Morsi appointed General Sisi defense minister.

Over his short-lived tenure as president, Morsi was frequently accused by the opposition groups of seeking to monopolize power. In a meeting with Haddad in Washington last December, U.S. President Barack Obama had urged the Muslim Brotherhood to include the opposition in the government, according to the Times.

Secretary of State John Kerry had even suggested naming former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei as prime minister to ease tensions with the opposition groups but Morsi had rejected the idea, the U.S. paper said.

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Syrian Town erupts after Israeli forces enter Beit Jinn; heavy casualties reported

News Network

November 28,2025

Several Syrians were killed and more than two dozen others injured in Israeli strikes on the outskirts of Damascus, amid intensified incursions by the occupying regime since the fall of former president Bashar al-Assad and the rise of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rule.

Syrian state TV reported that the casualties occurred during an overnight Israeli assault involving helicopters and drones on the town of Beit Jinn in the Damascus countryside. The attack followed an Israeli military unit’s entry into the town, where they were surrounded by local residents, leading to gunfire and direct confrontations.

According to the report, “The occupation army’s helicopters and artillery shelled Beit Jinn, located at the foothills of Mount Hermon, resulting in 13 martyrs and 25 injured civilians.” The broadcaster did not specify the full extent of damage.

Al-Ikhbariyah Syria confirmed that the shelling coincided with Israeli soldiers entering Beit Jinn, while artillery pounded surrounding areas. The broadcaster stated that the escalation began after local residents clashed with an Israeli patrol that had infiltrated the southern town and “kidnapped” three young men.

Following a two-hour exchange of heavy fire, Israeli forces withdrew and repositioned on the hill of Butt al-Warda at the town’s outskirts.

Israeli media acknowledged that six soldiers were wounded in the clashes—three of them seriously—describing the confrontation as a “sudden ambush” that forced the deployment of reserve units and air support to secure an exit route. No further details were provided.

The aggression has fueled renewed displacement from Beit Jinn, with residents fleeing to nearby villages amid increasingly frequent Israeli attacks.

The raid came just a day after Israeli troops carried out another ground incursion into Umm al-Luqas village in Quneitra province. According to SANA, an Israeli unit in four vehicles entered the village, raided several homes, and later withdrew.

Syria condemned the repeated incursions as violations of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement and UN resolutions, urging the international community to enforce compliance and pressure Israel to halt its operations and withdraw fully.

Israel has expanded its attacks across Syrian territory following the collapse of the Assad government last year. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly instructed his forces to push deeper into Syrian territory and seize strategic positions.

Meanwhile, critics say the HTS-led interim government’s inaction and growing normalization gestures toward Israel have emboldened Tel Aviv to intensify its military operations. HTS, formerly linked to al-Qaeda, seized control of Damascus last December, formally ending Assad’s rule.

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