By Agence France Presse (AFP)

Monday, January 31, 2011

Charles Onians

CAIRO: Egypt’s intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, anointed by embattled President Hosni Mubarak Saturday as his first ever deputy, is a loyalist general more at home in a tailored suit than a uniform.

Suleiman has emerged from the shadows of his job as the Middle East’s most powerful spy chief to become the man most likely to succeed Mubarak.

A discreet negotiator who favors working behind the scenes, he will have his work cut out trying to help Mubarak placate an angry nation.

Suleiman, who received military training in the former Soviet Union, was for years a highly enigmatic figure.  But he has increasingly acquired a public face in recent years, being tipped even before this week’s popular revolt as a potential successor to Mubarak.

Suleiman is a trusted talks partner for the U.S., Israel and the Palestinians. But, many in Egypt consider him part of Mubarak’s inner circle, and as such a pillar of a corrupt regime.

As news spread that the veteran president had finally decided to name a deputy, a crowd on Cairo’s central Tahrir square tellingly chanted: “Neither Mubarak nor Suleiman, we’re sick of Americans.”

In 1995, Suleiman advised Mubarak to ride in an armored car during a visit to Addis Ababa that shielded him from the fire of Islamist gunmen which killed the car’s driver.

During the 1990s, Suleiman joined the efforts of the CIA and other foreign intelligence agencies to crack down on Islamists, at home and abroad.

He also proceeded to target homegrown radical Islamist groups Gamaa Islamiya and Jihad.
Born in 1936 to a well-off family in the southern Egyptian town of Qena, Suleiman graduated from Cairo’s military academy in 1955. Appointed aide to Egypt’s military intelligence chief in 1988, he replaced his boss a year later.