Omar Suleiman

Omar Suleiman was an Egyptian intelligence official who served as the director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Service (EGIS) from 1993 to 2011 and briefly served as vice president of Egypt under Pres. Ḥosnī Mubārak in early 2011, becoming the first person to serve as vice president in Mubārak’s nearly three-decade presidency. During his tenure as director of EGIS, Suleiman, a close ally of Mubārak, emerged as one of the most powerful figures in Egypt, handling important diplomatic assignments and developing close relationships with Western intelligence agencies. Suleiman was born in the Upper Egyptian town of Qinā in 1936. He graduated from the Egyptian Military Academy in Cairo as an infantry officer and received further military training in the Soviet Union. He participated in the third Arab-Israeli war in 1967 and the fourth Arab-Israeli war in 1973. He received military training in the United States in the 1980s, after Egypt began to receive extensive military aid from the United States following the conclusion of a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. In 1986 Suleiman became the deputy head of military intelligence in Egypt. In 1993, as the security services fought to defeat a violent Islamist insurgency in Egypt, he was appointed director of EGIS. As director, Suleiman was entrusted with a portfolio that included foreign intelligence-gathering operations, counterterrorism, and protection for officials. Suleiman was credited with foiling an attempt on Mubārak’s life during a visit to Ethiopia in 1995 by persuading him to ride in an armoured limousine while on the visit. Militants did open fire on the president’s car in Addis Ababa, but the armour prevented any harm to Mubārak. As he became established as one of Mubārak’s most trusted advisers, Suleiman began to take on important diplomatic assignments. The Egyptian government made his identity public in 2001, breaking with the usual practice of keeping the identities of EGIS directors secret. His highest-profile diplomatic assignments dealt with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where he worked to broker agreements between Israel and the Palestinians as well as between rival Palestinian factions. In January 2011, amid mass protests calling for Mubārak’s resignation, Suleiman was appointed vice president, a position that had been vacant since Mubārak assumed the presidency in 1981. Suleiman was widely seen as a loyalist who would protect the regime’s interests, and his appointment did little to appease the protesters. On February 11, 2011, Suleiman announced that Mubārak had stepped down and that power had been transferred to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. Suleiman himself was removed from office shortly afterward. In April 2012, Suleiman announced his intention to run for president in the upcoming election, but his candidacy was disqualified by the election commission on a technicality. He died in July 2012 in a hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, where he had been undergoing medical tests.