Egypt: Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the general who called time on Mursi

When President Mohammed Mursi swept aside the ageing commanders of Egypt's military a year ago and named a soft-spoken, deeply religious younger general to head the armed forces, it was a demonstration that the military was now subordinate to Egypt's first freely elected leader.

Fast forward one year, and now it is the general, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has swept aside the president.

At the time of his appointment last August, the choice of Sisi, 58, seemed to suit both Mursi and the younger generation of army commanders seeking promotion after years under older generals, like 78-year-old Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Hosni Mubarak's defence minister for two decades.

Sisi was said to have experienced first-hand the aggravation of officers who watched huge amounts of money squandered on projects that lined the pockets of the high command but left the soldiers unable to fight effectively.

The army had produced the autocrats that had ruled Egypt for the previous 60 years. It had run the country itself during the tumultuous 16 months after the toppling of Mubarak.

And it had seemed reluctant to hand power to Mursi until the new president briskly dispatched Tantawi and a host of other commanders into retirement.