Egypt’s president fires intelligence chief

Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi has fired his spy chief Murad Muwafi in a major shake-up of military and intelligence ranks extending to the head of the Republican Guard and the governor of North Sinai.Wednesday’s decision comes several days after a deadly ambush in Sinai killed 16 soldiers, prompting an unprecedented military crackdown in the peninsula, but Morsi’s spokesman did not say whether the attack had prompted the changes.Morsi also ordered Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the defence minister, to replace the head of military police Hamdi Badeen, his spokesman Yassir Ali said in a televised statement on Wednesday.Morsi appointed Mohammed Rafaat Abdel Wahad Shehata as the interim head of General Intelligence.Earlier on Wednesday, Muwafi, himself a former governor of North Sinai, issued a rare public statement saying that his agency had forewarning of the weekend attack that killed the soldiers.But he said the intelligence did not specify where the attack would take place and he had passed it on to the “relevant authorities”, adding that his powerful agency’s role was only to collect information.The shuffle extended to Abdel Wahab Mabruk, the governor of North Sinai where the attack took place.Morsi is likely to have reached the decisions with the military, which ruled the country between President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in February 2011 and Morsi’s inauguration as his successor in June.The head of the Presidential Guard, the director of Security in Cairo and the director of Central Security Forces were also fired. Al Jazeera’s Sherine Tadros, reporting from Cairo, said that it was clear that Morsi was trying to take control of the situation. She said the dismissals were not just about Sunday night’s border attack, but that it was also about the funerals on Tuesday of the 16 soldiers, which the president and the prime minister did not attend because of security reasons.“That’s something that really upset a lot of people here who saw it as a national tragedy. He’s definitely trying to show them who’s boss.”