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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
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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.

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Sudan Families Bury Loved Ones Twice as War Reshapes Khartoum

A Red Crescent team exhumes bodies from a mass grave in Khartoum. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
A Red Crescent team exhumes bodies from a mass grave in Khartoum. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Sudan Families Bury Loved Ones Twice as War Reshapes Khartoum

A Red Crescent team exhumes bodies from a mass grave in Khartoum. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
A Red Crescent team exhumes bodies from a mass grave in Khartoum. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Under a punishing mid‑morning sun, Souad Abdallah cradles her infant and stares at a freshly opened pit in al‑Baraka square on the eastern fringe of Sudan’s capital.

Moments earlier the hole had served as the hurried grave of her husband – one of hundreds of people buried in playgrounds, traffic islands and vacant lots during Sudan’s two‑year war.

Seven months ago, Abdallah could not risk the sniper fire and checkpoints that ringed Khartoum’s official cemeteries. Today she is handed her husband’s remains in a numbered white body‑bag so he can receive the dignity of a proper burial.

She is not alone. Families gather at the square, pointing out makeshift graves – “my brother lies here... my mother there” – before forensic teams lift 118 bodies and load them onto flat‑bed trucks known locally as dafaar.

The Sudanese war erupted on 15 April 2023 when the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the army clashed for control of Khartoum, quickly spreading to its suburbs, notably Omdurman. More than 500 civilians died in the first days and thousands more have been killed since, although no official tally exists.

The army recaptured the capital on 20 May 2025, but the harder task, officials say, is re‑burying thousands of bodies scattered in mass graves, streets and public squares.

“For the next 40 days we expect to move about 7,000 bodies from across Khartoum to public cemeteries,” Dr. Hisham Zein al‑Abideen, the city’s chief forensic pathologist, told Asharq Al-Awsat. He said his teams, working with the Sudanese Red Crescent, have already exhumed and re-interred some 3,500 bodies and located more than 40 mass graves.

One newly discovered site at the International University of Africa in southern Khartoum contains about 7,000 RSF fighters spread over a square‑kilometer area, he added.

Abdallah, a mother of three, recalled to Asharq Al-Awsat how a stray bullet pierced her bedroom window and killed her husband. “We buried him at night, without witnesses and without a wake,” she said. “Today I am saying goodbye again this time with honor.”

Nearby, Khadija Zakaria wept as workers unearthed her sister. “She died of natural causes, but we were barred from the cemetery, so we buried her here,” she said. Her niece and brother‑in‑law were laid in other improvised graves and are also awaiting transfer.

Exhumations can be grim. After finishing at al‑Baraka, the team drives to al‑Fayhaa district, where the returning owner of an abandoned house has reported a desiccated corpse in his living room. Neighbors said it is a Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighter shot by comrades. In another case, a body is pulled from an irrigation canal and taken straight to a cemetery.

Social media rumors that authorities demand hefty fees for re‑burials are untrue, Dr. Zein al‑Abideen stressed. “Transporting the remains is free. It is completely our responsibility,” he added. The forensic crews rotate in two shifts to cope with the fierce heat.

Asked how they cope with the daily horror, one member smiled wanly over a cup of tea, saying: “We are human. We try to find solutions amid the tragedy. If it were up to us, no family would have to mourn twice.”

Khartoum today is burying bodies – and memories. “We are laying our dead to rest and, with them, part of the pain,” Abdallah said as she left the square, her child asleep on her shoulder. “I buried my husband twice, but we have not forgotten him for a single day. Perhaps now he can finally rest in peace.”