Egypt’s day of fury: Cairo in flames as cities become battlegrounds

• Hosni Mubarak regime left reeling as thousands defy curfew • Police fire baton round volleys into crowds unwilling to retreat When Mohamed ElBaradei arrived in Midan Giza, a traffic-snarled interchange on the west bank of the Nile, for Friday prayers, he saw a graphic illustration of Egypt under President Hosni Mubarak: neat rows of police and plainclothes security officers lining the streets to maintain calm. By the time he left the central Cairo square an hour or so later it was in flames, doused with teargas and water cannon and with rocks flying through the air – a glimpse of what an Egypt sick of Mubarak had become. By the evening the first military vehicles of the Egyptian army would be out on the capital’s streets, swathed in clouds of gas and smoke from burning tyres and buildings, and ElBaradei, according to reports, would be under house arrest. It was billed on the internet by those organising the protests as a day of “fury and freedom” – a historic moment for an Egypt that has seen anger and fury aplenty. Whether it delivered freedom remains an open question. The presidential hopeful had come to the Al Istiqama mosque to pray; before he left his home he told the Guardian it would be a day of confrontation with a regime on its last legs. He had barely finished worship when the regime struck back, firing bombs and gas into the crowd and sending riot police charging with batons. ElBaradei was whisked away by supporters; thousands of others were forced to scatter into back alleys, choking and chanting amid the smoke. Egypt’s day of fury had begun. In the narrow side streets protesters regrouped, wellwishers on their balconies threw down water for those with streaming eyes from the tear gas. “Wake up Egypt, your silence is killing us,” came the yells from below. Others shouted: “Egyptians, come down to join us.” Their appeals were answered with people streaming down from the apartment blocks: “We are change” and “Gamal [Mubarak] tell your father Egyptians hate him,” were the cries. They aimed for Haram Street, Cairo’s famous boulevard that stretches all the way to the pyramids. Tens of thousands more were waiting, clashing with thinly-strung lines of central security force officers who buckled and bowed under the force of the crowd. “Do you see what Mubarak has been reduced to?” said a young man, coughing into the scarf his face was wrapped in. “Today’s the beginning of a new Egypt, a free Egypt.” It was a day of high and violent drama when Egypt’s main cities, the vast capital foremost among them, were turned into battlegrounds. Cairo’s bridges, enveloped in streamers of smoke, became the focus of that struggle, jammed with pushing demonstrators and ranks of police, locked in confrontation. With most Egyptians cut off from the world and each other, with internet and mobile phones brought down by the regime, it was a conflict played out with live television, and only live television, the source of updates. Many mosques were closed under dubious pretexts, including the central Omar Makram mosque in the city centre, mysteriously shut for “building work”, but surrounded by plainclothes police. Cairo had been flooded by so many police that it seemed impossible the columns of protesters could break through to reach the city centre. Yet they did. Doused in teargas, peppered with rubbber bullets, hosed down by water cannon and beaten, they held their ground through the long day as what had been called as a peaceful demonstration quickly turned violent, with volleys of baton rounds met with petrol bombs and bricks. Late tonight , dozens of cars were burning outside the Nileside tourist hotels and the armoured police vehicles that had once chased the protesters were being hunted down themselves and torched. Amid all the confusion, the first cracks in the 30-year-old dictatorship began to appear. A young policeman who moments earlier had been smashing protesters with a baton was forced to fall back, dropping his shield and helmet as he fled. Two protesters of the same age picked them up, ran towards him and handed them back. “We are not your enemy,” they told the terrified conscript. “We are like you. Join us.” Further down the road, platoons of security forces surged towards Tahrir Square. One officer took a teargas canister from his belt, held it up to the crowd and threw it harmlessly behind him. At one bridge, the Qasri Nile, the key battle of the day had earlier taken place, a vicious game of push and pull, that saw it change hands several times as the regime tried to seal the city centre from the huge crowds converging on it. “I missed my chance to revolt when I was a young man,” said Dr Gihad El Nahary, a 52-year-old professor at Cairo University. “I am not going to make the same mistake now.” By 3pm local time protesters from Giza had fought their way through to Midan Dokki, less than a mile from central Tahir Square. There the riot police had also been forced to withdraw, leaving two security trucks and a handful of isolated conscripts behind. The young policemen were surrounded by a 100-strong crowd. A minority of the crowd made to attack the stranded policemen, but the majority held them back. One policeman gestured desperately at the throng around him. “I am not afraid of you … I am afraid of losing my job and ruining my family,” he shouted. “Mubarak is in his castle and has abandoned you to your death. Give him up and join us!” a woman screamed in reply, before the police were given safe passage back to their station by the crowd. This is a revolution that has been observed from the five-star hotels by tourists both curious and terrified. Some crowded on the balcony of the Semiramis hotel, to watch the battle on the nearby bridge. Others inside the Hilton briefly barricaded the doors with a heavy desk . By 5pm, as the sun began to set, the army of police that had once occupied the city centre in their battalions and stood on the Nile bridges, had been diminished. On the 6th October bridge, as darkness fell, a couple of dozen police were attempting to hold their positions confronted by a crowd of several thousands. “Do you see what they are doing?” asked Samir Raafa, as police fired volley after volley of baton rounds into a crowd no longer willing to retreat. “Everywhere is now like this. We came from Shubra. There were 100,000 of us, we got split up from our friends. We have been told ElBaradei is on the Qasri Nile bridge, that’s where people are trying to get to. It’s not that we support him, but we want to be with everyone.” It was under this bridge that the Guardian saw the first army vehicles, two armoured infantry carriers, motoring down the Nile Corniche, news of their arrival cheered by demonstrators. By 7.45pm a column of Egyptian army tanks was visible, rumbling across the Abd El Moniem Riyad overpass, flying Egyptian flags. Some of them had protesters dancing on them as they drove along. Adel, an engineer conscripted into the Egyptian army, had shed his military uniform and joined the protesters, watching as the tanks rolled across the street. He warned that deaths were inevitable. “Some soldiers won’t fire on the Egyptian people, but others are too scared to disobey orders. You have no idea what rebelling in the army can mean for you.” He continued: “I am supposed to be on the 7am train to my barracks, but we are witnessing the final hours of Mubarak and his regime.” Egypt Middle East Protest Jack Shenker Peter Beaumont guardian.co.uk

Posted by on January 28, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry