1986 — The Mutiny That Humiliated Mubarak

On February 25, 1986, some 25,000 conscripts of Egypt's Central Security Forces, the regime's own riot police, mutinied in and around Cairo. A rumor sparked the revolt: that their three years of compulsory service would be extended to four, with no extra pay.

The conscripts burned luxury hotels by the pyramids as the revolt spread up the Nile to Assiut, Sohag, and Ismailia. President Mubarak sent the regular army, with tanks, helicopter gunships, and fighter jets; over 100 people died, and 20,000 conscripts were dismissed. The regime had been forced to make war on its own police. It was a humiliation the regime could not hide from its own people.