48 hours of Blood by mistake in Western desert

This is how the day started in Egypt on Sunday.
Earlier Sunday a bunch of Pro-Daesh social media accounts online published photos for alleged clashes between their militants and the Egyptian armed forces in some place in the Western desert. The photos were not clear and they only showed the Daesh militants opening their fires in some
desert location and vehicles moving away after being attacked with RPG.
Allegedly those vehicles were the Egyptian armed forces as the group claimed.
In the same statement which I won’t post its link due to its graphic nature, a photo of a beheaded old man was included. According to the Daesh’s militant group calling itself as “Egypt Province”, that man was Saleh Kassem, a local from the Western desert who was beheaded for cooperating with Egyptian authority.

Late 60-years old Saleh Kassem smiling "Al-Shorouk"

The Official Egyptian armed forces spox FB page did not publish anything about that.
The Egyptian mainstream media ignored that statement in compliance with the new terrorism law. Later those events seem to be the key to what happened later.
At 8:54 PM CLT, human rights lawyer Amr Imam wrote the following.

قريبي وصاحب عمري واخويا مات ... عوض الجيش ضربه بطيارة اباتشي في صحراء الواحات بالغلط هو 22 سائح !! حق عوض مش حسيبه وحياة سيف ابني ماحسيبه

— amr imam (@amr_imam) September 13, 2015

My relative , my best friend and my brother died… the army hit Awad by an APACHE helicopter in the Wahat desert by mistake along with 22 tourists. I won’t leave Awad’s righ , I swear by Seif’s life. “Emam’s newly born baby”

At 8:58 PM CLT , Safari organizer’s FB page “Sahara Safaris Club”

Warning: After being optimistic that the White desert and Safari are open before the feast “Adha” , very sorrowful events took place today.

For your security and the security of those coming with you , please contact your guide from the locals in Wahaht to check and recheck from permits with the security Whatever happens , we will know more details about inshallah in the upcoming hours but your security is top priority especially this week. The Egyptian desert and Safari tourism have been always respectful providing living for many respectful people. Please do not attack them because they are trying to do the best they can in very difficult or semi-impossible conditions. Inshallah God will protect poor people and its respectful people. May God protect this country and make it safe forever.  

Sahara Safaris club’s admin is from the Safari trips veteran organizers with more than 10 years experience.
No more details were given but in the comments began to speak about Awad and his group.
Later Amr Imam on twitter began to reveal more information as much as he could.

#عوض_الجيش_قتله ... عوض مرشد سياحي ومدير فندق واخد فوج سياحي وبيعملوا سفاري في الصحراء شافتهم طيارة اباتشي راحت مصفياهم #دولة_القهر

— amr imam (@amr_imam) September 13, 2015

Awad was a tourist guide and hotel manager, he was with a tourist group in a safari trip in the desert when they were spotted by an Apache helicopter and were killed.

Imam added that from 5 hours ago then, 8 Egyptians and 8 Mexicans were killed because of an airstrike and that there was no statement from the army.
There was nothing in the media either that can confirm or deny.
At 12:11 AM CLT Monday, unofficial Egyptian police Facebook page published the following Status.

Breaking now: 7 terrorists were liquidated in on-going clashes between the terrorists and police forces at the Wahat area, the clashes are still going on.

The army forces join the police forces in the clashes going on with the terrorist group in Al-Wahat…10 terrorists have been killed so far.

I just wonder how they knew in four minutes the death toll in the enemy lines in Al-Wahat while the admins of that FB “mostly police officers” are in Cairo.

@12:36 AM CLT, a statement for the ministry of interior soon about El-Farafara oasis clashes where our forces gave Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis unforgettable lesson.

I thought that clashes were near Al-Wahat oasis, not Farafra oasis !!
@ 1:30 AM CLT , the Ministry of interior issued the following statement

On the 13 September and during a chase against terrorists by a joint force from the army and police at Al-Wahat area in the Western desert ,  the 4x4 vehicles of a Mexican tourist convey “were dealt with according to literal translation” by mistake as they were in restricted area. The incident result in the death of 12 people while 10 others from Mexicans and Egyptians were injured and transferred to the hospital.
A team was formed to stand on what happened and why a tourist convoy excited in that restricted area.

This was the official statement of the Egyptian government and for the record, it admitted that security forces made a mistake despite blaming the convey later of being in a restricted area.
When I read the official statement of the MOI now hours later, I found out that there was mention on how “they dealt with the convoy”. It did not mention an exact location or time.
The statement was translated to English and sent to foreign media. Interestingly the MOI said that security forces “fired by” mistakes at the convey.

The MOI statement in English
Heba Farouk

So if we take in consideration what lawyer Amr Imam said at 8 PM CLT, we would know that the attack could have taken place at about 2 PM or 3 PM at least. So for nearly 10 hours, the Egyptian government did not announce that disaster.
Needless to say most Egyptians were asleep but on the other side of the Atlantic, Mexico was just waking up on the news that at least 7 of its citizens were killed.
@3:58 AM CLT, Mexico’s President Enrique Nieto announced that Mexico condemned the attack against its own citizens and that the government of Egypt is demanded to have a thorough investigation.

México condena estos hechos en contra de nuestros ciudadanos y ha exigido al gobierno de Egipto una exhaustiva investigación de lo ocurrido.

— Enrique Peña Nieto (@EPN) September 14, 2015

@4:38 AM CLT, the Mexican Ministry of foreign affairs announced that two Mexican nationals were killed in the attack and that the injured were transferred to Egypt’s top dar El-Fouad hospital in Giza.

Now this incident raises many questions on the friendly fire in Egypt.
Already there is a lot of attention given to the incident that was the news of the day in Egypt due to the fact that the victims are foreign tourists. Usually, if the victims are Egyptians, they will be ignored and you can find a good example or rather horrifying examples unfortunately in North Sinai Where the army battles Daesh-associated Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis.
The people in Sinai were actually on how they were being ignored where as the government officially pays respect to the foreign victims and ignore their on-going misery for three years now
I am not a military expert but, I know that the more locals fall because of friendly fire with no proper apology or compensation or respect can turn the locals against you.
Not to mention there is a huge and clear problem when it comes to the rules of engagements in general in Egypt.
There should be warning shots with better judgement.
There is another problem when it comes to coordination between the different security forces.
After all, if you have a military operation zone, you should inform the checkpoints all over the desert as well the policeman accompanying that convey.
There is nothing wrong for the state or the army or the police to admit that it made a huge mistake and apologize instead of blaming the tourist company as well tourists themselves, unfortunately.
Officially there has been nearly official accusation to the tourism company by the ministry of tourism and the Pro-regime media.
Unofficially, the Pro-regime supporters did nothing on Facebook or twitter in Egypt except blaming the Mexican tourists wondering about their true intentions to visit Egypt and that holy restricted zone using all the stereotypes you can imagine.
In the end, May God bless the souls of those people who were killed on that afternoon in the Western desert because of stupid grave mistakes. My deepest condolences to the Mexican people especially the families of the victims. I have nothing to say except that I wish that 8 people would have come and left Egypt with lots of souvenirs and lots of wonderful memories about my country instead of returning back in coffins.

The families of the Egyptian victims waiting at
Zenihom morgue in Cairo "Cairo Today" 

My deepest condolences to the poor families of the Egyptian victims. My deepest condolences to the victims of those have been killed by mistake in the past 4 years in Egypt.