Egyptian Chronicles: The Reality and Myth about the hostages crisis

This is the full interview conducted by my favourite Mona El-Shazely who hosted for the first time in an Egyptian TV channel two Egyptians from the hostages of Gelf Kabir abduction incident.

They are the owner of Aegytus Mr. Ibrahim El-Saber and one of the 4 Egyptian guides Mr. Mohamed Abd El-Hafez.

Here is the video of the complete interview where the true story of the abduction and how they were saved is mentioned from A to Z in Arabic.

Here is a summary in English from Mr. Ibrahim said about this terrible experience :

The Reality :

1- They were abducted by a group he believed mostly from Chad not for political or religious reasons but for ransom only, they are gang made of Chadians ,most of them can’t read or write ,some of them were underage kids , yes they were wearing and masked like the forces of Darfur but they were not from there unlike what the Sudan is promoting. They are very naive despite the big guns , very big many guns they have , they are Muslims who prayed and fasted despite they were kidnapping innocent civilians with no right at from Egypt. They considered the hostages as POWs !! They took the Thurya Phone along with the GPS from Ibrahim

2- After 3 days of abducting the tourists from Egypt and heading towards to Sudan , that gang mentioned why they kidnapped them and what they wanted from the POWs , the numbers of the foreign Embassies in Cairo especially the German one “DO not ask why not the Italian and surely do not ask why not the Egyptian authorities”. Now this will show you that the Egyptian Government did not know except after 3 days unlike to what some media promoted that Egypt knew and hided the matter.

3-Because they are naive Ibrahim had an advantage with his Egyptian intelligence. He succeeded in convincing them to let him call his German Wife in Egypt ; he lied to them saying that she did not understand Arabic “Despite she does” , he called her and told her everything , the German strong woman went immediately to the German Embassy and from there the Embassy informed the Egyptian authorities .

4- The Germans were soon to negotiate with the abductors through Ibrahim and sometimes directly to the gang.

5-The Thurya Phone Ibrahim used got a GPS feature , he used to memorize the numbers that located them , in the next call with the Germans he would tell them those numbers ,for 3 times he did it.

6-He and his Egyptian crew kept calm and cool so the Europeans would n’t freak out , the Germans did not freak out but the Italians were on the brick and I can’t blame them.

7- The Chadian soldiers “If that was the correct word to be used” sympathized with the Egyptians because they found them Muslims like them who fasted and prayed and so before 4 or 5 days from their release the commander or the manager of that gang as they used to call him told Ibrahim that he and the rest of the Egyptians were free to go but Ibrahim and the Egyptians refused to leave the Europeans “These are the real Egyptians”

8- They went from Egypt to Sudan and not to Chad

9- Ibrahim managed to lower the ransom from $20 Million in to $6 Million and the German negotiator managed to lower it from $ 6 Millions to $ 2 Millions “another example of how stupid they are”

10- Now the end ; on the 28th of September Sudan announced that it attacked and killed 8 from that gang , it was at night ,those 8 took one of the Safari Jeeps and headed inside Sudan where the Sudanese forces shot them down , now another example of the stupidity of that group that they thought the Sudanese forces were Egyptian forces !! Of course Stupidity kills when it carries big guns , the group went made and was going to execute all the Egyptians if I may say Mohamed Abd El-Hafez did not start praying , these guys believed it was unacceptable to kill a Muslim in the holy Month.

11- Then suddenly they decided to release the hostages ,I think they were scared ,they gave Ibrahim one Land cruiser with an old GPS , the 5 Egyptians sat on the top of the 4X4 and the rest were inside the jeep. He found his way to Egypt from Sudan.

12- After 30 KM in the Egypt,they found a whole Egyptian special forces camp in the desert,it was a cheerful,tearful and happy meeting,they were rescued in the desert ,they did not have much food and water.The hostages kissed each other and the Egyptians could not believe themselves and kissed the officers. Now listen to this ,the officers told the Egyptians that they arrived in that place the second day after it was declared that they were abducted, they were ready for a green light to launch an attack and they were VERY ANGRY that they sat there waiting. It is not their fault that their commanders are big fat liars and they are still our men whether you like it or not.

13- Mr. Ibrahim spoke on behalf of all Egyptians when he said that he felt with great humiliation that a group of amateurs kidnap him and his group from Egypt and that they got away from that easily.Ibrahim said that he was ready to stay more days in captivity so the Egyptian forces would come and teach that gang a lesson.

14- They do not know what happened to their abductors.

The Myths :

1- That Egyptian intelligence officer or whoever visited them according to Al Dostor.

2- Mr. Ibrahim was the accomplice of the gang according the Governor of the New Valley Governorate Mr.General something statement to infamous El-Nabaa tabloid !!

3- They are from Darfur , clearly they are not.

4- They went to Libya , they did not even touch it !!

5- It seems that No ransom was given to anyone.

This puts an end to the media circus. I do not need to say that this crisis showed the confusion of the ministers and how … !! What can I say more , this is the top of the ice berg !!