Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's calculating autocrat, dies at 91
CAIRO - Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a cautious head of state who for decades kept a cold peace with Israel and crushed political dissent at home until a 2011 protest movement overwhelmed his security forces and drove him from power in the early days of the Arab Spring, died on Tuesday, according to Egypt state TV. He was 91.
His health sharply deteriorated after he was handed a life sentence in 2012 for failing to stop police from killing hundreds of people in the uprising that ended his rule. He was acquitted five years later, but by then Mubarak was a diminished, almost spectral figure, waving from the window of a military hospital along the Nile or lying on a stretcher, his gaunt face hidden by sunglasses.
Modern Egypt's longest-serving leader, Mubarak was pragmatic but rarely imaginative as he struggled to outflank growing resentment at home and preserve the country's slipping stature in a volatile region. He often seemed more intent on consolidating power than on advancing a political ideology, revealing an authoritarian streak that drew reproach from Washington, his biggest ally.
Pent-up public anger over years of repression became his undoing in January 2011 when protests swept across Cairo and other cities. Organized by youth movements, the 18 days of demonstrations engulfed Egyptians from all social
