Ed Ou for The New York Times - A member of the Egyptian military speaking to a crowd, urging them to maintain order and obey the curfew. More Photos »
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Saturday, January 29, 2011
CAIRO (NY Times) — Tens of thousands of protesters once again defied President Hosni Mubarak’s curfews and threats of a harsh crackdown, taking to the streets for a fifth day as the Egyptian leader struggled to hold on to the power that he has maintained in nearly 30 years of authoritarian rule.
State television announced that he had named Omar Suleiman, his right-hand man and the country’s intelligence chief, as his vice president. Until now, Mr. Mubarak, who was vice president when he took power after the assassination of President Anwar el-Sadat, has steadfastly refused to name any successor, and the move stirred speculation that he was planning to resign.
His grip on power was further challenged Saturday as the military that he had deployed to take back control of the streets showed few signs of suppressing the unrest, and in several cases the army took the side of the protesters in the capital and the northern port city of Alexandria.
In the most striking instance, members of the army joined with a crowd of thousands of protesters in a pitched battle against Egyptian security police officers defending the Interior Ministry on Saturday afternoon.
Protesters crouched behind armored trucks as they advanced on the ministry building, hurling rocks and a few Molotov cocktails and setting abandoned cars on fire. But the soldiers providing cover for the advancing protesters refused their pleas to open fire on the security police, while the police defending the ministry battered the protesters with tear gas, buckshot and rubber bullets. There were pools of blood in the streets as protesters carried a number of wounded back out of their ranks.
In other parts of the capital, soldiers invited protesters to climb aboard their armored personnel carriers to have their pictures taken, and in Alexandria, demonstrators took tea to troops.
The loyalty of the military — the country’s most popular and respected institution — will be crucial to determining whether Mr. Mubarak can remain as the president of his country, a leader in the Arab world and perhaps America and Israel’s closest ally in the region. A change in leadership here would threaten to upend the established order throughout the Middle East.
Late in the day Saturday, state media reported that Mr. Mubarak had named Ahmed Shafik, a well-respected retired general, as the new prime minister — a possible effort to strengthen ties with the military.
The late-afternoon confrontation followed a night of rampant looting around Cairo and then an extraordinary day of peaceful celebration in central squares of the city. The brigades of security police officers who battled hundreds of thousands of protesters on Friday had withdrawn from x most of the city, many pulling back to positions defending core government buildings and Mr. Mubarak’s presidential palace.
One crowd cheered and chanted, “The army and the people will purify the country.” And jubilant crowds marched with their fists in the air, many of them carrying Egyptian flags.
By midday Saturday, young civilians were trying to fill gaps left by the police, directing traffic and in some cases defending their neighborhoods with clubs and other makeshift weapons.
Mr. Mubarak, however, appeared to push back, imposing a new curfew of 4 p.m. — which protesters defied — and state television warned that the police would shoot violators on sight.
Although cellphone service was restored in much of the country, the government appeared to still be blocking or restricting the Internet in an attempt to keep protesters from using social networking sites to communicate. The leaders of the early demonstrators, many of them young, used those sites to organize their protests, successfully evading Mr. Mubarak’s efficient security apparatus, which has for years co-opted opposition leaders it could and jailed those it could not.
The role of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist opposition group, remained unclear. The group had initially declined to take part in the protests, which started Tuesday, saying the holiday — Police Day — was a time for Egyptians to come together. But as the protests grew, the group was scrambling to get its own people out on the streets.
Source: NY Times