Mubarak’s Allies and Foes Clash in Egypt

CAIRO — The Egyptian government broadened its crackdown of a 10-day uprising that has shaken its rule Thursday, arresting journalists and human rights activists, while offering more concessions in a bid to win support from a population growing frustrated with a reeling economy and scenes of chaos in the streets.

With fighting between pro- and antigovernment forces escalating throughout the day, supporters of President Hosni Mubarak attacked foreign journalists, punching them and smashing their equipment, and shut down news media outlets that had operated in buildings overlooking Tahrir Square, which has become the epicenter of the uprising.

In interviews and statements, the government increasingly spread an image that foreigners were inciting the uprising that has prompted tens of thousands to take to the streets to demand the end of Mr. Mubarak’s three decades in power. The suggestions are part of a days-long Egyptian news media campaign that has portrayed the protesters as troublemakers and ignored the scope of an uprising that has captivated the Arab world.

“Millions turn out to support Mubarak,” read a banner headline Thursday on the front page of Al-Ahram, the leading government newspaper.

In an interview with ABC News, Mr. Mubarak said that he regretted the violence in Tahrir Square and that he was “fed up” with being president but could not step down for fear of sowing chaos in the country. With his son, Gamal, sitting by his side, he refrained from criticizing President Obama, but said he had told the president that “you don’t understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen if I step down now.”

Faced with the resilience of the protest in Tahrir Square, the government tried to temper the crackdown with more concessions, some of which would have been startling if made weeks ago. In a long interview broadcast on state television, Vice President Omar Suleiman said that Gamal Mubarak, long seen as being groomed for the presidency, would not run in the coming presidential election.

He also called for dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood, which remains banned, even though it is country’s most influential opposition group. In a sign of the new landscape, Mr. Suleiman referred to it by name rather than the government’s usual coded language.

“We have contacted the Muslim Brotherhood and invited them, but they are still hesitant about the dialogue,” he said. “I think that their interest is to attend the dialogue.”

Those concessions might have defused the protests just days ago, but as the uprising persists, many of the protesters have become more forceful in their demands. After pitched clashes Wednesday, banners in Tahrir Square declared Mr. Mubarak “a war criminal,” and several in the crowd said that the president should be executed.

Friday may prove decisive to the uprising. Organizers have called it the “Friday of departure,” and many see it as crucial in keeping momentum behind the uprising.

But the government’s strategy seems motivated at turning broader opinion in the country against the protests and perhaps wearing down the protesters themselves, some of whom seemed exhausted by two days of clashes. Mr. Suleiman appealed to Egypt’s sense of decency in allowing the president to serve out his term, and he chronicled the mounting losses that, he said, the uprising had inflicted on a crippled Egyptian economy.

“End your sit-in,” he said. “Your demands have been answered.”

As fighting between pro- and antigovernment forces escalated, armed Mubarak supporters attacked foreign journalists, punching them and smashing their equipment. Men who protesters said were plainclothes police officers shut down news media outlets that had been operating in buildings overlooking Tahrir Square.

Mubarak supporters seized an informal center set up by human rights workers in Tahrir Square, and two employees of Amnesty International and one from Human Rights Watch were detained, the groups said.

Two reporters working for The New York Times were released on Thursday after being detained overnight in Cairo. Two Washington Post staffers were among two dozen journalists detained by the Interior Ministry on Thursday morning, the paper reported.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton strongly condemned the actions against the journalists.

"This is a violation of international norms that guarantee freedom of the press.  And it is unacceptable under any circumstances," she said. "We also condemn in the strongest terms attacks on peaceful demonstrators, human rights activists, foreigners and diplomats. Freedom of assembly, freedom of expression and freedom of the press  are pillars of an open and inclusive society."

The concerted effort to remove journalists lent a sense of foreboding to events in the square, where battles raged throughout the day between the protesters and Mubarak supporters, who human rights workers and protesters say were being paid and organized by the government. People bringing food, water and medicine to the protesters in the square were being stopped by Mubarak supporters, who confiscated what they had and threw some of it into the Nile.

In the afternoon, the fighting spread beyond the square to the October 6th Bridge, which rises above the Egyptian Museum. Shots were heard, and a surgeon assisting the antigovernment protesters said three people were killed. “It was the police or the army, we don’t know,” said the surgeon, Mohamed Ezz. “Only they have guns.”

After the shots were fired, the army moved in to separate the combatants, witnesses reported.

Seeking to blunt international condemnation of the bloody crackdown in Tahrir Square on Wednesday, the government offered a series of conciliatory gestures in addition to those offered by Mr. Suleiman. The newly appointed prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, apologized for the violence and vowed to investigate who had instigated it “I offer my apology for everything that happened yesterday because it’s neither logical nor rational,” he said.

Egypt’s public prosecutor issued a travel ban on former government ministers and an official of the National Democratic Party on suspicion of theft of public money, profiteering and fraud, state television reported. Among the four was the hated former interior minister, Habib al-Adly, who commanded a secret police force that was widely despised for its corruption and routine use of torture.

The concessions followed a night of gunfire and a day of mayhem Wednesday that left at least five dead and more than 800 wounded in a battle for the Middle East’s most populous nation. With the violence rising, the United Nations ordered the evacuation of much of its staff on Thursday, while more than 4,000 passengers made their escape through Cairo airport, The Associated Press reported.

In a statement, the American Embassy, which has ordered the compulsory evacuation of some diplomats and their families, said that more than 1,900 American citizens had been flown out of Egypt since Monday and that more would leave on Thursday.

A government spokesman, Magdy Rady, denied that the authorities had been involved in the violence. “To accuse the government of mobilizing this is a real fiction. That would defeat our object of restoring the calm,” Mr. Rady told Reuters. “We were surprised with all these actions.”

Officials in Mr. Mubarak’s National Democratic Party were at pains to absolve the president as well of any role in the violence. Speaking with one voice they blamed the ugly scenes on thugs hired by a group of rich businessmen eager to support the government.

But opposition leaders dismissed that explanation as a smoke screen, saying it was highly unlikely that anyone would take such a fateful action without the approval of the president himself.

The outcome of the widening unrest is pivotal in a region where uprising and unrest have spread from Tunisia to many other lands, including Jordan and Yemen, forcing their leaders into sudden concessions to their suddenly vocal foes and stretching American diplomacy.

In Sana, the Yemeni capital, on Thursday, thousands of protesters assembled, some for and some against President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The demonstrations were peaceful, in marked contrast to the chaos that ruled in Cairo on Wednesday. Calls for new protests in a number of Middle East countries were circulating on Twitter, including: Algeria, Feb. 12; Bahrain, Feb. 14; and Libya, Feb. 17.

In the clashes on Wednesday, the Egyptian military did nothing to intervene. But on Thursday for the first time, a thin line of soldiers backed by tanks and armored personnel carriers appeared to have taken up positions between the combatants and to be urging Mr. Mubarak’s supporters, numbering in the hundreds, to avoid confrontation.

For their part, several thousand antigovernment protesters, far fewer than in previous days, called for peaceful protest. “An Egyptian will not attack another,” some chanted from behind makeshift barricades thrown up to seal access to the square. “No bloodshed.”

When one man shouted an insult at a Mubarak supporter around 100 yards away, another, Mahmoud Haqiqi, told him: “Don’t say that. Stay quiet. Tell them we are here for their sake.”

Early Thursday, the square was littered with rocks and makeshift barricades, with smoke drifting overhead. Troops guarded the Egyptian Museum, Cairo’s great storehouse of priceless antiquities dating to the time of the Pharaohs and a huge emblem of national pride.

As the fear of further clashes gripped Cairo, foreigners, including many Americans, continued their exodus.

There was no indication that the antigovernment side was in a mood for retreat. On Thursday, the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood — the biggest organized opposition group — again rejected a government offer to negotiate once the protesters had left Tahrir Square.

Essam el-Erian, a senior leader of the Islamist organization, told Reuters the movement was calling for the removal of “the regime, not the state.”

“This regime’s legitimacy is finished, with its president, with his deputy, its ministers, its party, its Parliament. We said this clearly. We refuse to negotiate with it because it has lost its legitimacy,” he said.

Reporting was contributed by Kareem Fahim, Liam Stack and Mona El-Naggar from Cairo, Alan Cowell from Paris, Michael Slackman from Berlin, Helene Cooper from Washington and J. David Goodman from New York.

via nytimes.com