Egyptian army ousts president

Morsi calls it a ‘full coup;’ troops patrol tense streets

CAIRO — Egypt’s first democratically elected president was ousted Wednesday by the military after barely a year in office, felled by the same kind of popular revolt that first brought him to power in the Arab Spring rebellion.

The armed forces announced it would install a temporary civilian government to replace Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, who denounced the action as a “full coup” by the generals. They also suspended the Islamist- drafted constitution and called for new elections.

Millions of anti-Morsi pro- testers in cities around the country erupted in joy after the televised announcement by the army chief. Fireworks burst over crowds in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, where men and women danced, shouting, “God is great” and “Long live Egypt.”

“Don’t ask me if I am happy, just look around you at all those people, young and old, they are all happy,” said 25-year-old protester Mohammed Nageh, shouting to be heard at Tahrir. “For the first time, people have really won their liberty.”

Fearing a violent reaction by Morsi’s Islamist supporters, the

military sent troops and armored vehicles into streets of Cairo and elsewhere. The head of the political wing of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood was arrested. Clashes quickly erupted in provincial cities when Islamists opened fire on police, officials said.

In the Rabaa section of Cairo, a crowd of bitter Morsi supporters sprayed gunfire into the air and pledged to fight to preserve the political gains of the Muslim Brotherhood, the secretive organization through which Morsi had risen to prominence. Many were armed with guns and sticks.

“Jihad is our destiny,” they chanted. “Our revolution is Islamic, Islamic. … Don’t worry Morsi, we are all with you.”

The army’s move is the second time in Egypt’s 2 ½ years of turmoil that it has forced out the country’s leader. In the first, it pushed out autocrat Hosni Mubarak after the massive uprising against its rule.

Its new move came after a stunning four-day antiMorsi revolt that brought protests even larger than those of 2011, fueled by public anger that Morsi was giving too much power to his Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists and had failed to tackle the country’s economic problems.

This time its removal of an elected figure could be more explosive. Beyond fears over violence, even some protesters are concerned whether an armyinstalled administration can lead to real democracy.

In Washington, Presi- dent Barack Obama urged Egypt’s military to “move quickly” to return authority to an elected civilian government. He said he was ordering the U.S. government to assess what the military’s actions meant for U. S. foreign aid to Egypt — $1.5 billion a year in military and economic assistance.

Egyptian military officials assured their U. S. counterparts that forces would ensure the safety of Americans in Egypt. Nonetheless, the State Department was ordering all nonessential U. S. dip- lomats and the families of all American embassy personnel to leave Egypt.

Military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi addressed the nation on television while flanked by the country’s top Muslim and Christian clerics as well as pro-reform leader Mohammed ElBaradei and two representatives of Tamarod, or Rebel, the youth opposition movement.

In his speech, el-Sissi said the chief justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Adly Mansour, would step in as interim president.