How Did Mubarak Survive 6 Assassination Attempts?

Mubarak alongside Sadat before the latter's assassination during the October 6, 1981 military parade. EPA file photo
Mubarak alongside Sadat before the latter's assassination during the October 6, 1981 military parade. EPA file photo
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How Did Mubarak Survive 6 Assassination Attempts?

Mubarak alongside Sadat before the latter's assassination during the October 6, 1981 military parade. EPA file photo
Mubarak alongside Sadat before the latter's assassination during the October 6, 1981 military parade. EPA file photo

After surviving an assassination attempt against former President Anwar Sadat in 1981, sitting beside him during what came to be known as the “Platform Events”, late President Hosni Mubarak was able, over three decades in power, to survive around six attempted murders. The most important of which was when his convoy was targeted in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, heavily disturbing Egypt’s relationship with the rest of the African continent.

In 1993, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) planned to assassinate Mubarak by planting explosives on the western coastal route while he was headed to Libya by land. The security services revealed the plan and were able to capture the suspects and then sentenced them to death in 1994 by military court order as well as a life sentence to three others.

On “Fardaws Bridge” was another failed attempt in late 1994 when around 30 members of the Jihad Group dug a tunnel near the Salah Salem road in East Cairo and planted explosives to target Mubarak’s convoy. The security forces once again succeeded in capturing them.

The most prominent was on June 26, 1995, when Mubarak arrived in Addis Ababa for the African Summit. On the way from the airport to the summit venue, an armed group opened fire on Mubarak’s bulletproof car while his personal guards shot back at the attackers, killing two and injuring another. As a result, Mubarak decided to return to Cairo immediately.

Mubarak’s assassination attempt in 1995, was a turning point in Egyptian-African relations. According to diplomats, the event stopped Mubarak and anyone close to him from attending any event in the continent. With that, Egyptian interest in Africa receded in general and that had large implications in their disputes with the countries surrounding the Nile, most importantly, Ethiopia. After returning to Cairo, Mubarak said: “I think God is always protecting me,” and hinted towards the involvement of Sudanese President Omar al- Bashir’s government in the attempt.

Four years later, there was another attempt to assassinate Mubarak in Port Said, northeast of Cairo, when a citizen attacked his convoy while Mubarak was waving at citizens from the window of his car. The attacker clung onto the vehicle and the republican guards consequently killed him. Back then, some media outlets mentioned that the man tried to stab Mubarak while others said the suspect was mentally unstable.

According to secret documents released by the BBC in 2017, the Egyptian embassy in London informed the British authorities of detailed information of a threat against Mubarak during his visit to London in 1983 by the Abu Nidal terrorist group, and security measures were consequently enhanced.

American websites also mentioned that the former Egyptian President survived another assassination attempt in 1995 after a plan by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda to blow up Mubarak’s plane failed.



Rising Seas and Shifting Sands Attack Ancient Alexandria from Below 

A view of buildings on the corniche in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, Egypt, April 20, 2025. (Reuters)
A view of buildings on the corniche in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, Egypt, April 20, 2025. (Reuters)
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Rising Seas and Shifting Sands Attack Ancient Alexandria from Below 

A view of buildings on the corniche in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, Egypt, April 20, 2025. (Reuters)
A view of buildings on the corniche in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, Egypt, April 20, 2025. (Reuters)

From her ninth-floor balcony over Alexandria's seafront, Eman Mabrouk looked down at the strip of sand that used to be the wide beach where she played as a child.

"The picture is completely different now," she said. The sea has crept closer, the concrete barriers have got longer and the buildings around her have cracked and shifted.

Every year 40 of them collapse across Egypt's second city, up from one on average a decade ago, a study shows.

The storied settlement that survived everything from bombardment by the British in the 1880s to attacks by crusaders in the 1160s is succumbing to a subtler foe infiltrating its foundations.

The warming waters of the Mediterranean are rising, part of a global phenomenon driven by climate change. In Alexandria, that is leading to coastal erosion and sending saltwater seeping through the sandy substrate, undermining buildings from below, researchers say.

"This is why we see the buildings in Alexandria being eroded from the bottom up," said Essam Heggy, a water scientist at the University of Southern California who co-wrote the study published in February describing a growing crisis in Alexandria and along the whole coast.

The combination of continuous seawater rises, ground subsidence and coastal erosion means Alexandria’s coastline has receded on average 3.5 meters a year over the last 20 years, he told Reuters.

"For many people who see that climatic change is something that will happen in the future and we don’t need to worry about it, it’s actually happening right now, right here," Heggy said.

The situation is alarming enough when set out in the report - "Soaring Building Collapses in Southern Mediterranean Coasts" in the journal "Earth's Future". For Mabrouk, 50, it has been part of day-to-day life for years.

She had to leave her last apartment when the building started moving.

"It eventually got slanted. I mean, after two years, we were all ... leaning," she told Reuters. "If you put something on the table, you would feel like it was rolling."

BARRIERS, BULLDOZERS, CRACKS

Egypt's government has acknowledged the problem and promised action. Submerged breakwaters reduce coastal wave action and truckloads of sand replenish stripped beaches.

Nine concrete sea barriers have been set up "to protect the delta and Alexandria from the impact of rising sea waves," Alexandria's governor, Ahmed Khaled Hassan, said.

The barriers stretch out to sea, piles of striking geometric shapes, their clear curves and lines standing out against the crumbling, flaking apartment blocks on the land.

Authorities are trying to get in ahead of the collapses by demolishing buildings at risk.

Around 7,500 were marked for destruction and 55,000 new housing units will be built, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly told a crowd as he stood on one of the concrete barriers on July 14.

"There isn't a day that passes without a partial or complete collapse of at least one building that already had a demolition order," Madbouly said.

Some are hopeful the measures can make a difference.

"There are no dangers now ... They have made their calculations," coffee shop owner Shady Mostafa said as he watched builders working on one of the barriers.

Others are less sure. Alexandria's 70-km (45-mile) long coastal zone was marked down as the most vulnerable in the whole Mediterranean basin in the February report.

Around 2% of the city's housing stock – or about 7,000 buildings – were probably unsafe, it added.

Every day, more people are pouring into the city - Alexandria's population has nearly doubled to about 5.8 million in the last 25 years, swollen by workers and tourists, according to Egypt's statistics agency CAPMAS. Property prices keep going up, despite all the risks, trackers show.

Sea levels are rising across the world, but they are rising faster in the Mediterranean than in many other bodies of water, partly because the relative shallowness of its sea basin means it is warming up faster.

The causes may be global, but the impacts are local, said 26-year-old Alexandria resident Ahmed al-Ashry.

"There's a change in the buildings, there's a change in the streets," he told Reuters.

"Every now and then we try to renovate the buildings, and in less than a month, the renovations start to fall apart. Our neighbors have started saying the same thing, that cracks have started to appear."