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patrick martin

An Egyptian soldier mounted on an armoured personnel carrier outside a shopping mall in the affluent Cairo neighbourhood of Maadi.Heidi Levine/Sipa Press

When the 55-year-old Egyptian driver didn't move fast enough, one of the gunmen who had forced the vintage Jeep Cherokee off the road fired his machine pistol into the ground outside the open driver's door.

With the terrified family chauffeur and his equally frightened 14-year-old passenger clear of the car, one of the gunmen jumped in and drove off while his two cohorts got back into their own vehicle and fled.

It was 4:30 on a Thursday afternoon in January, broad daylight in the Egyptian capital, and a time when many Cairenes are on the road heading home early for the weekend. And it's a sight that has become increasingly common, even in a country ruled by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

Whereas affluent Egyptians used to be specially protected during the Mubarak years, in post-revolutionary Egypt they find themselves more vulnerable to criminal attacks and the country's police less and less eager to protect them.

Cairo is starting to look at lot like Bogota these days.

In the Cherokee case, the teenaged passenger was being driven from his home in Maadi, a tree-lined neighbourhood of older villas and attractive apartments, to the home of a mate in New Cairo, an area of newer mansions carved out of the desert.

Family members in the Cherokee case agreed to be interviewed but insisted on anonymity for fear of reprisal. It's a common fear.

The carjacking could just as easily have been a kidnapping, they believe, a crime that also is on the rise here. Last month, two grandchildren of the late president Anwar Sadat were abducted as they were being driven to school. They were returned two days later after the family paid a ransom reported to be 2 million Egyptian pounds ($330,000).

There have been similar kidnapping cases involving other prominent families, says Hugh Nicol, who writes a daily column on crime for the small English-language newspaper Egyptian Gazette.

Armed robberies, mostly of banks and post offices, also have increased dramatically, as have seemingly random killings. A United Nations consultant was shot in the head in February while driving her jeep through Mohandessin, an upscale Cairo district, on her way to work.

But it is carjackings that are the rage right now. Late last month, a prominent presidential candidate, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, and his driver were dragged from their car and beaten with the butt of a weapon as their car was stolen.







"It was never like this before the revolution," says the English-born Mr. Nicol, who has lived in Cairo for more than 20 years.

There's always been crime, he adds, but it was usually confined to poorer neighbourhoods. Such brazen attacks on the more affluent had been rare.

One reason is that many people are suffering economically since last year's uprising hurt tourism and foreign investment, he says.. The absence of police is another factor. The police continue to be among the most popular targets of protesters and many officers quit their jobs last spring. Others seem to be held back by the Interior Ministry, which still is resisting the political changes in the country.

More than that, however, the thieves aren't afraid any more. "In the past, these people wouldn't have dared to rob the rich," said Mr. Nicol. "They would have figured the rich were well-connected to the regime and, in that case, they knew that if they got caught they'd never emerge from the police station again."

Concern over crime reached such a level in the past two months that the government announced in February it was deploying military forces at key places in affluent neighbourhoods, and many well-off Egyptians are hiring guards or buying guns.

In the case of the Cherokee, the story didn't end with the carjacking. Six weeks after his jeep was taken, the car's owner received a call from one of the thieves offering to return the vehicle for 40,000 Egyptian pounds. The owner said it wasn't worth 10,000 and hung up, but eventually agreed to pay 12,500, or the equivalent of $2,000.

The drop took place in an armed compound south of Cairo that recalls the American Wild West's Tombstone, the refuge of criminals where law enforcement never dares to go.

The Cherokee owner says he now carries two guns with him when he's in the car, and refuses to let either of his children leave the Maadi area unless he's driving. Many people are importing pepper spray, and buying bigger locks. Others are sending their kids abroad.

"Somebody told me the other day where I could go to get our car bullet-proofed," said J, the mother of the Cherokee owner, shaking her head.

"I hate to say all these things about Egypt," she said. J, who agreed to speak on condition that she be identified only by her initial, had met and married an Egyptian at university in England and has lived happily in Egypt for more than 40 years. "I just hope it's a temporary thing, until we get law and order back again."

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