Obama Orders Review of US Aid to Egypt

But is careful not to call it a 'military coup'; Morsi under house arrest
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 3, 2013 6:29 PM CDT
Updated Jul 3, 2013 7:28 PM CDT
Obama Orders Review of US Aid to Egypt
Celebratory fireworks light the sky in Cairo's Tahrir Square.   (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Well now what? Celebratory fireworks were exploding over Tahrir Square after the Egyptian military announced it had ousted Mohamed Morsi, but Morsi himself continues to reject the move. The big question is whether those who support him and the Muslim Brotherhood will respond with violence, as Morsi himself suggested yesterday in his vow to defend the presidency with his own life. President Obama weighed in on the situation late today, saying he was "deeply concerned" by the military's action and calling for a swift return to a "democratically elected civilian government," reports Politico. (Egypt's military says it has a transition plan to accomplish that.) Obama also ordered US agencies to review their aid to Egypt, because it cannot by law go to a nation after a military coup. However, he did not use that phrase to characterize what happened in Egypt in his "carefully worded statement," reports USA Today. (Read it in full via the Wall Street Journal here.)

As for Morsi, he and other members of his presidential team are under house arrest in a barracks of some sort run by the army's Republican Guard, reports NBC News. A statement from his office (or former office?) issued after he was deposed still refers to him as president and says the "military coup" is "categorically rejected by all the free men of our nation." The military, which continues to reject the label of a coup, today issued warrants for the arrest of 300 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, reports AFP. The nation's interim leader—Adli Mansour, head of the constitutional court—is due to be sworn in tomorrow. (More Egypt protests stories.)

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