The problem here is that it wasn’t an individual thing, but a mob. My guess is that the instigators were agents provocateur, Mubarak supporters watching their chance. When it became clear to them that their side had lost, they “vented”.

What is the mindset of a rapist? In general, violence and aggression flow out of anger, an impulse for revenge, that sort of thing. So I’m guessing the rapists were part of the losing side and had bought into Mubarak’s line that it was the fault of foreigners stirring up trouble.

His partisans had already a long track record of criminal violence. They did most of the killing during the revolution. Many were recruited from the ranks of common criminals. So we have a different logic. Not: it figures, they’re Muslim…it doesn’t figure. Instead, it figures, what do you expect from frustrated loser goons?