Audio recordings of senior Egyptian officials that were leaked Sunday suggest that when Mohamed Morsi was president, the United Arab Emirates gave the Egyptian Defense Ministry money for a protest campaign against him.
The recordings, which could not be authenticated, appear to indicate that both the Egyptian military and its backers in the Emirates played a much more active role in fomenting the protests against Mr. Morsi in June 2013 than either party has acknowledged.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who was then the defense minister, said when he led the ouster of Mr. Morsi that he was acting in response to the protests.
The audio recordings are the latest in a long series that appear to capture the private meetings and phone calls of senior defense officials. All have been released through Islamist news outlets that oppose President Sisi.
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Since the ouster of Mr. Morsi, Egypt has suffered a series of attacks on security forces, which have killed hundreds of soldiers and police officers. The latest took place Sunday, when a small bomb went off near a police station in the city of Aswan, Egyptian state news media outlets reported. Two civilians were killed and nine injured, the outlets said. The bombing in Aswan was the first of the attacks to strike near a major tourist site.
Merna Thomas contributed reporting from Cairo.
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