Army creates buffer zone to prevent possible clashes
Friday, 04 February 2011
Egyptian protesters massed Friday for sweeping "Departure Day" demonstrations to force President Hosni Mubarak to quit after he said he would like to step down but fears chaos would result.
Tens of thousands filled Cairo's central Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the 11 straight days of protests that have shaken the pillars of Mubarak's three-decade rule, on the Muslim day of rest.
At one end of the square the faithful prayed out in the open, beneath two traffic lights from each of which hung an effigy of Mubarak.
"We were born free and we shall live free," prayer leader Khaled al-Marakbi said in his sermon. "I ask of you patience until victory."
The death toll from Tahrir incidents has increased to 11 after three died today after they were held in intensive care and their condition was critical 
Worshippers used newspapers, banners or even Egyptian flags as impromptu prayer mats, reciting the traditional prayer for the dead in memory of the more than 150 people who have died since the protests erupted, the U.N. put the number at 300, sending shock waves around the world.
The prayer leader and many in the vast open-air congregation cried, still shaken by the ferocious clashes with stone-throwing Mubarak supporters that had left at least eight people dead and more than 800 hurt over the previous two days and drawn a stern rebuke from Washington for its key ally.
Death toll mounts
Eleven people died in clashes between pro- and anti-President Mubarak supporters in Cairo this week, Egypt's health minister told Al Arabiya on Friday.
"The death toll from Tahrir incidents has increased to 11 after three died today after they were held in intensive care and their condition was critical," Egypt's Health Minister Ahmed Sameh Farid said.
Farid said around 5,000 have been wounded since massive protests broke out on Jan. 25.
There was a new pro-government rally on Friday in the upscale Mohandeseen neighborhood of the capital but it was attended by dozens of people rather than the tens of thousands in Tahrir and participants told AFP they had no intention of going to the square.
The army deployed about a dozen vehicles around the perimeter to create a buffer zone in case pro-Mubarak demonstrators appeared, although AFP correspondents had seen none by early afternoon.
Troops wearing helmets and full riot gear and protest stewards wearing hard hats carried out identity checks at entrances to the square to prevent it being infiltrated by provocateurs.
"Mubarak won't stand again"
I do not think he (Mubarak) will leave. I think he will stay until the end of August Defense Minister Mohammed Hussein Tantawi -- regarded by Washington as a key plank of any post-Mubarak administration -- visited the square to appeal to demonstrators to give up their protest.
The authorities have been appealing to demonstrators to go home after Mubarak pledged earlier this week not to seek re-election in September.
But opposition groups from across the political spectrum have dismissed the concession as inadequate and have rejected calls by Vice President Omar Suleiman, Mubarak's veteran intelligence chief, to enter talks.
"The man (Mubarak) told you he won't stand again," Tantawi told the protesters flanked by troops, who urged the crowd to be seated.
Tantawi called on Egypt's most powerful opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood -- outlawed for half a century -- to join a dialogue with the regime.
"Tell the guide to go sit down with them," he said, referring to the group's supreme guide Mohammed Badie.
Badie has said that the Brotherhood stood ready to enter talks, but only after Mubarak had gone.
"We have a single demand. Once it is met, we will engage in dialogue," he said.
Arab league chief
Arab League chief Amr Moussa entered Cairo's Tahrir Square, his office said.
"The secretary general went to Tahrir Square in a calming gesture," his office told AFP.
Moussa, Mubarak's onetime foreign minister said he doubted his former boss would leave any time soon.
"I do not think he (Mubarak) will leave. I think he will stay until the end of August," Moussa told France's Europe 1 radio.
Prominent Egyptian reform advocate Mohamed ElBaradei said President Hosni Mubarak should step down now with dignity as thousands of protesters pour into Cairo's main square.
ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace laureate who has become one of the leaders of Egypt's protest movement, said Mubarak "should hear the clear voice coming from the people and leave in dignity."
Alexandria protests
Tens of thousands of people protested against Mubarak in the Egyptian city of Alexandria Friday.
An AFP photographer said crowds had gathered at the Qaed Ibrahim mosque in the center of Egypt's second city, which sits on the Mediterranean coast.
The protesters, a majority of them from the opposition Muslim Brotherhood movement, shouted "Down with Mubarak! Down with the regime!"
Members of other opposition groups were also present, including activists from the Kefaya (Enough) and 6th April movements and supporters of Egyptian Nobel Peace prize winner and ElBaradei.
Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Sobhi Saleh said another group of around 25,000 protesters had massed in Alexandria's Raml neighborhood, and planned to converge with the main gathering before marching to the city's Sidi Gaber square.
Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq told his interior minister to allow peaceful protests to take place without interference, the official MENA news agency said.
"There will be chaos"
If I resign today, there will be chaos The 82-year-old Egyptian leader, speaking in an interview with ABC on Thursday after bloodshed in Cairo that killed 10 people, said he believed his country still needed him.
"If I resign today, there will be chaos," said Mubarak, who has promised to step down in September. Asked to comment on calls for him to resign, he said: "I don't care what people say about me. Right now I care about my country."
U.S. officials said on Thursday they were talking to Egyptian officials about a variety of ways to move towards a transition of power, including one in which Mubarak leaves office immediately.
"That's one scenario," said a senior Obama administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "There are a number of scenarios, but (it is) wrong to suggest we have discussed only one with the Egyptians."
The New York Times earlier said Washington was discussing a proposal for Mubarak to turn over power to a transitional government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman with the support of the Egyptian military.
The White House would not confirm the Times report but said discussions have been under way with Egyptians in an attempt to resolve the crisis.
The Times also quoted a senior Egyptian official as saying that what Washington was asking for could not be done, citing clauses in the Egyptian Constitution that bar the vice president from assuming power. Under the constitution, the speaker of parliament would succeed the president.
"That's my technical answer," the official added. "My political answer is they should mind their own business."
Moving to defuse an unprecedented challenge to his 30-year-rule, Mubarak appointed Suleiman, a former intelligence chief, as vice-president and offered talks on reforms.
But that has failed to satisfy protesters who are hoping to rally thousands of Egyptians on Friday for a fresh demonstration to try to force Mubarak to quit now.
Role of the army
Their reputation is exceptionally high with the people. The military would say that's who they're supporting, the people of Egypt The U.S. military's top officer Admiral Mike Mullen said Egyptian army leaders have "reassured" him their forces will not fire on protesters.
Mullen said in a television interview that he was working to keep lines of communication open with the Egyptian military and expressed hope for a peaceful resolution of the crisis gripping the country.
"I mean in the discussions I've had with their military leadership, they've reassured me that they have no intent to fire on their own people," Mullen told the "Daily Show with Jon Stewart."
Mullen, who spoke by phone to his Egyptian counterpart on Wednesday, General Sami Enan, reiterated his praise for the armed forces, which U.S. officials hop e will play a role in steering the country toward democratic reform.
"Their reputation is exceptionally high with the people. The military would say that's who they're supporting, the people of Egypt," he said.
The U.S. State Department said it expected confrontation in what would be the 11th day of protests.
An estimated 150 people have died in the protests, at least 10 of them in confrontations which erupted in Tahrir Square on Wednesday when pro-Mubarak supporters attacked the protesters.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Washington believed elements close to the government or Mubarak's ruling party were responsible for the violence which erupted on Wednesday. The Interior Ministry has denied it ordered its agents or officers to attack anti-Mubarak protesters.
Government offers talks
In a move to try to calm the disorder, Suleiman said on Thursday the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's most organized opposition movement, had been invited to meet with the new government as part of a national dialogue with all parties.
An offer to talk to the banned group would have been unthinkable before protests erupted on Jan. 25, indicating progress made by the reformist movement since then. However, the opposition has refused talks until Mubarak goes.
The United States, which supplies the Egyptian army -- Mubarak's power base -- with about $1.3 billion in aid annually, is struggling to find a solution to the crisis that does not exacerbate instability in the Arab world's most-populous nation.
Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said President Barack Obama has said now is the time to begin "a peaceful, orderly and meaningful transition, with credible, inclusive negotiations."
The New York Times said the U.S. proposal called for a transitional government to invite members from a broad range of opposition groups, including the banned Muslim Brotherhood, to begin work to open up the country's electoral system in an effort to bring about free and fair elections in September.
Egypt, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, has been a key U.S. ally in the Middle East. Mubarak had also justified his use of emergency rule as needed to curb Islamist militancy in a country where al Qaeda had its ideological roots.
Mubarak described Obama as a very good man, but when asked by ABC if he felt the United States had betrayed him, he said he told the U.S. president: "You don't understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen if I step down now."
The protests were inspired in part by events in Tunisia, where its leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was forced to flee last month.
Oil prices have climbed on fears the unrest could spread to affect oil giant Saudi Arabia or interfere with oil supplies from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal.
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