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Egyptian Army Moves to Stop Assault on Protesters
AP/Yahoo! News
Egyptian army tanks and soldiers cleared away pro-government rioters and
deployed between them and protesters seeking the fall of President Hosni
Mubarak, as the prime minister made an unprecedented apology Thursday for the
assault by regime backers that turned central Cairo into a battle zone.
Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq told state TV that the attack Wednesday on the
anti-government protesters was a "blatant mistake" and promised to investigate
who was behind it.
The protesters accuse the regime of organizing the assault, using paid thugs and
policemen in civilian clothes, in an attempt to crush their movement. Government
supporters charged central Tahrir Square Wednesday afternoon, sparking 15 hours
of uncontrolled chaos, with the two sides battled with rocks, sticks, bottles
and firebombs as soldiers largely stood by without intervening.
The military began to move with muscle for the first time to stop the fighting
early Thursday after a barrage of automatic gunfire hit the anti-government camp
before dawn, killing at least three protesters in a serious escalation.
Four tanks cleared a highway overpass from which Mubarak supporters had hurled
rocks and firebombs onto the protesters. Soldiers on the streets carrying rifles
lined up between the two sides around 11 a.m. Several hundred other soldiers
were moving toward the front line.
Thursday morning, more protesters streamed into the square, joining the
thousands of defenders who spent the chilly night there, hunkered down against
the thousands of government supporters in the surrounding streets.
A sense of victory ran through the protesters, even as they organized their
ranks in the streets in case of a new assault...
The apology by Shafiq, who was appointed by Mubarak over the weekend, was highly
unusual from a leadership that rarely makes public admissions of a mistake. His
promise to investigate who organized the attack came only hours after the
Interior Ministry issued a denial that any of its police were involved...
The anti-Mubarak movement, which has carried out an unprecedented 10 days of
protests bringing as many as quarter-million people into Tahrir, has vowed to
intensify protests to force him out by Friday. In a speech Tuesday night,
Mubarak refused to step down immediately, saying he would serve out the
remaining seven months of his term — a halfway concession rejected by the
protesters. |
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