TV host ridiculed for claiming Sisi foiled US naval attack on Egypt

Television host Mohamed al-Ghiety was met with widespread derision after he claimed that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had thwarted US Navy warships poised to attack Egypt in retaliation against the dispersal of Muslim Brotherhood sit-in camps last August.

The anchor made the allegations during his daily talk show on the privately owned Tahrir channel. The segment went viral on social media, prompting scornful backlash from commentators who accused Ghiety of fabricating news as part of a systematic propaganda campaign meant to bolster Sisi’s image.

Ghiety claimed to have learned of the foiled US attack from reading “Hard Choices,” the memoirs of former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Viewers quickly discredited his assertion by point out that Clinton had left her post in February 2013, six months before the Rabea al-Adaweya sit-in dispersal.

The talk show host alleged that US naval forces were en route to the coastal city of Alexandria when they were ambushed by Egyptian Air forces and combat divers.

“Egyptian Air Forces hovered over the US naval forces, whose warships moved from their base in Naples, Italy, and were willing to bombard the [Egyptian] Navy. The heroic Egyptian combat divers led by the Egyptian hero Mohab Memish [a former military council member] went under one of these warships and kidnapped a US Navy leader,” Ghiety claimed.

A “great” Egyptian army general whose name Ghiety declined to mention purportedly called US President Barack Obama and “ordered” him to back off from Egyptian shores. He delivered Sisi’s message that Egypt did not want to escalate its maneuvers, but if the US insisted, then Egypt would do exactly that, and declare its triumphant operation against US forces to the entire world.

“Memish told the men about two plans: Either to return victorious, or return as martyrs. The Egyptian army used a Russian aviation system developed by Egyptians in order not to be seen by US radar,” Ghiety declared on his show. “This is the greatness of the Egyptian military.”