Mubarak orders army to back police against unrest
By Edmund Blair Edmund Blair – Fri Jan 28, 5:08 pm ET
CAIRO (Reuters) – President Hosni Mubarak ordered troops and tanks into Egyptian cities on Friday in an attempt to quell street fighting and growing mass protests demanding an end to his 30-year rule.
Mubarak, facing a challenge that could send shock waves through the Middle East, also declared a curfew. But thousands stayed on the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and Suez -- the epicenter of four days of protest.
Shots were heard near parliament and the headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Party was in flames, the blaze lighting up the night sky. Cheering demonstrators thronged around armored cars that moved in a long convoy through Cairo.
Tanks were also seen in the capital and in Suez.
Mubarak, a close U.S. ally, has not been seen in public since unrest began, and there were rumors he would make a television address. The speaker of parliament said late on Friday that "an important matter will be announced in a short time."
Medical sources said 13 protesters had been killed and 75 wounded on a day that saw security forces using rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannon to disperse crowds.
"How can they do this? Instead of helping the people who are fighting for our rights, these people are dancing with the devil," Zeinab Abdel Fattah, 17, said.
"I don't care for politics and I'm a coward, but I will soon join in because I can't watch them kill our boys."
Demonstrations involving tens of thousands of people were the biggest and bloodiest in four consecutive days of protests by people fed up with unemployment, poverty, corruption and the lack of freedom under Mubarak. Protesters shouted "Down, Down, Hosni Mubarak," some throwing stones at police.
In Washington, the White House said it would review its aid policy toward Egypt based on the events of coming days. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington was deeply concerned by violence used by the security forces.
The unrest, which has raised fears of instability in other authoritarian Middle Eastern countries, hit global financial markets. Crude oil prices surged, world stocks fell and the dollar and U.S. Treasury debt gained as investors looked to safe havens.
FIRES
The Pentagon said Egyptian armed forces chief of staff Lieutenant General Sami Enan would break off defense talks in Washington and return to Cairo on Friday.
Some 2,000-3,000 people encircled a military vehicle near Cairo's Tahrir square, a Reuters witness said. They climbed on it, shaking hands with the soldiers, and chanted: "The army and the people are united" and "The revolution has come."
In the eastern city of Suez, site of the strategically crucial canal, armored cars deployed in front of the charred remains of a police station, a Reuters witness said.
Dozens of protesters climbed on the military vehicles in Suez. They talked to soldiers who attempted to wave them off.
The unrest in Egypt, Yemen and elsewhere was triggered by the overthrow two weeks ago of Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Al Ben Ali.
Snatch squads of plain clothes security men dragged off suspected ringleaders. At the Fatah mosque in central Ramses Square in Cairo, several thousand were penned in and teargassed.
Protesters often quickly dispersed and regrouped.
Some held banners saying: "Everyone against one" and chanted "Peaceful peaceful peaceful, no violence." Others threw shoes at and stamped on posters of Mubarak. "Leave, leave, Mubarak, Mubarak, the plane awaits you," people chanted.
Activist Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Laureate, was briefly penned in by police after he prayed at a mosque in the Giza area but he later took part in a peaceful march with supporters. Arabiya television said later police had "asked" him to stay home but this could not be confirmed.
WAFD PARTY CALLS FOR INTERIM GOVERNMENT
In some parts of Cairo, protests were peaceful. Dozens of people prayed together on one road. In Giza, on the city outskirts, marchers shook hands with the police who let them pass peacefully.
It is far from a foregone conclusion that the protesters will force Mubarak out given the strength of the security forces in Egypt.
"... the Egyptian security apparatus ... over the years has developed a vested interest in the survival of President Mubarak's regime," said Amon Aran, a Middle East expert at London's City University.
"This elaborate apparatus has demonstrated over the past few days that it is determined to crush political dissent," he said.
The head of the opposition Wafd party, Sayyid al-Badawi, said Egypt needed a period of transitional rule, new parliamentary elections and an amended constitution to prevent a president serving for more than two six-year terms.
Wafd, a decades old liberal, nationalist party, boycotted the parliament election in November saying the vote was rigged in favor of Mubarak's National Democratic Party.
Before Friday's clashes, at least five people had been killed over the four days, one of them a police officer. Police have arrested several hundred people.
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood opposition group, including at least eight senior officials, were rounded up overnight. The government has accused the Brotherhood of planning to exploit the protests.
Many protesters are young men and women. Two thirds of Egypt's 80 million people are below 30 and many have no jobs. About 40 percent of Egyptians live on less than $2 a day.
Elections were due to be held in September and until now few had doubted that Mubarak would remain in control or bring in a successor in the shape of his 47-year-old son Gamal.
Father and son deny that Gamal is being groomed for the job.
(Additional reporting by Dina Zayed, Marwa Awad, Shaimaa Fayed and Yasmine Saleh,, Alison Williams and Samia Nakhoul in Cairo, Alexander Dziadosz in Suez; Writing by Angus MacSwan and Ralph Boulton; editing by David Stamp)
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