February 6, 2011

Egypt panel ‘to study constitutional reform’: BBC

The BBC’s Jim Muir: “Protesters blocked the army from advancing into Tahrir Square and spent the night sleeping under the tracks of tanks”

Egypt’s opposition groups – including the banned Muslim Brotherhood – have given a wary response after landmark talks with the government on how to end the country’s political crisis.

The meeting followed 13 days of street protests calling on President Hosni Mubarak to resign.

Opposition groups told the BBC they were sceptical about the government’s good faith.

Meanwhile, many banks opened for the first time in a week.

Long queues formed as people waited to withdraw money.

Tens of thousands have again joined demonstrations in Cairo and other cities, calling for democratic reforms.

President Mubarak has refused to resign immediately, saying that to do so would cause chaos and has said instead that he will not stand for re-election in September.

State of emergency
Mr Suleiman was hosting the talks on Sunday along with a number of opposition parties, including Wafd and Tagammu, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood.

Egyptian State TV said the participants had agreed to form a joint committee of judicial and political figures tasked with suggesting constitutional amendments.

However, the Brotherhood said the talks would only continue if the government makes progress on meeting its demands.

Deputy leader Rashad Mohammed el-Bayoumy said these included “the immediate removal of this regime, beginning with Hosni Mubarak; the lifting of the emergency laws that we have been living under for more than thirty years… Dissolving the parliament, which is in place only as a result of blatant election rigging; and finally, the release of all political prisoners.”

The BBC’s Jon Leyne, in Cairo, says opposition members and a group of so-called “wise men” who were also there told him they were sceptical of the government’s moves.

It was the first time the government and the long-banned Brotherhood have held talks.

However, another key opposition figure – former UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei – was absent.

Economic woes
The participants also rejected foreign interference in Egypt’s affairs and said they would work towards the peaceful transition of power, the state news reports said.

Mr Suleiman had invited the groups last week, telling the Muslim Brotherhood it was a “valuable opportunity”.

The Brotherhood had previously said it would not take part in the negotiations.

The Islamist group is Egypt’s most influential and well-organised opposition but it remains officially banned and its members and leaders have been subject to frequent repression.

Mr Mubarak has blamed it for the unrest and said that if he leaves, the group will exploit the ensuing political chaos.

The Muslim Brotherhood denies accusations that it is seeking to create an Islamist state in Egypt.

Earlier, hundreds of bank branches across the country and in Cairo opened at 1000 local time (0800 GMT).

Long queues formed at some for the brief opening period – the banks closed again at 1330 local time.

The central bank has released some of its $36bn (£22bn) in official foreign reserves to cover withdrawals, amid fears Egyptians would be panicked into taking out their savings.

Deputy central bank governor Hisham Ramez has said he is confident all transactions will be honoured.

The government is seeking to revive an economy said to be losing at least $310m (£192m) a day.

Many shops, factories and the stock exchange have been closed for days, and basic goods have been running short.

Correspondents say many Egyptians have been wondering how quickly daily life will return to normal regardless of the outcome of the struggle for power.

But they also say there is no let-up in the magnitude of the protests in Tahrir Square, and the mood is almost back to the festival atmosphere of the first few days, with many families and young children in attendance.

Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt talks: Al Jazeera online

Opposition group says it is sticking to condition that Hosni Mubarak step down, as about a million protest in Cairo.

The government says “stability” is returning, as about a million people rallied in Cairo’s Tahrir Square [GALLO/GETTY]
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has held talks with the government aimed at ending the country’s political crisis, but one of the group’s leaders has told Al Jazeera that it does not trust the authorities to follow through on promised reforms.

The developments came as pro-democracy rallies continued across the country on Sunday – the 13th day of protests in the country.

About a million people were reported to be observing a “day of the martyrs” in Cairo’s Tahrir Square – the focal point of the protests – calling for an end to Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule. An Al Jazeera correspondent, Ayman Mohyeldin, who was at the square, was arrested by the military on Sunday afternoon.

Both Muslims and Christians held prayers at the square for the victims of the uprising.

Thousands of protesters also gathered in the cities of Alexandria and Mahalla. In other parts of the country, banks and shops began to reopen as normal life was seen to be resuming.

Egyptian state television said Omar Suleiman, the country’s newly appointed vice-president, began meetings with prominent independent and mainstream opposition figures on Saturday to go through the options, which centre on how to ensure free and fair presidential elections while sticking to the constitution.

The Egyptian president, in a televised address on Tuesday, said he would not seek re-election in September but refused to step down immediately, fearing “chaos”.

Brotherhood talks
The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has played down the opposition’s talks with Suleiman, saying that it is not prepared to drop its central demand of calling for Mubarak to resign as president.

“We cannot call it talks or negotiations. The Muslim Brotherhood went with a key condition that cannot be abandoned … that he [Mubarak] needs to step down in order to usher in a democratic phase,” Abdul Monim Abo al-Fotoh, a member of the MB, told Al Jazeera.

The MB was one of several groups taking part in Sunday’s talks. Other participants included members of secular opposition parties, independent legal experts and business tycoon Naguib Sawiris, attendees said.

A representative of Mohamed ElBaradei, the opposition figure, was also in attendance.

Al-Fotoh described the meeting as testing the waters for what concessions the government was prepared to make.

He said he “did not see any … seriousness so far. They [the government] have failed to take concrete measurement on the ground.

“If they were serious, the parliament would have been dissolved, also a presidential decree ending the emergency law”.

He said that articles 77, 78 and 88 of the constitution should also have been amended by now.

Al-Fotoh was referring to an article of the constitution covering presidential elections, which now effectively puts Mubarak’s governing NDP party in a position to choose the next president, and another that allows the president to run for unlimited presidential terms.

He said the Muslim Brotherhood “does not seek power” and will not be fielding a candidate for president in elections.

He asserted that the organisation was not prepared to step back from its demand for Mubarak’s departure, saying that if it did, the move would be a “betrayal of the martyrs who have died in the these protests”.

On Sunday, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, cautiously welcomed the inclusion of the MB in talks, but said Washington would “wait and see” what results the dialogue yields.

A proposal being promoted by a group of Egyptians calling itself the The Council of Wise Men involves Suleiman assuming presidential powers for an interim period pending elections.

But some opposition figures argue that would mean the next presidential election would be held under the same unfair conditions as in previous years.

They want to first form a new parliament to change the constitution to pave the way for a presidential vote that is democratic.

Announcement due
Issam al-Aryan, a leading Muslim Brotherhood member, said that the organisation will hold a news conference on Sunday evening to announce what was discussed in the meeting with Suleiman.

Both he and Mohammed Mursi, another senior leader, said that the group will be sticking to its demand that Mubarak resign.

An Al Jazeera correspondent in Cairo described the news of the MB joining the talks as “highly significant”.

“They are interested in talking about the resignation of president Mubarak,” he said. “They want parliament resolved, they want those responsible for violence of the last few days put on trial … and wanting to be able to peacefully protest.”

Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Alexandria – one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s strongholds – says many people are surprised by the group’s decision to enter talks.

He said it is a major concession that might be seen as a “weakness” in the sense that the MB did not stick to its stated position against joining negotiations until Mubarak resigns.

Cherif Bassiouni, president of the Egyptian American Society and a former UN human rights expert, said the MB has already proved itself to be a responsible participant in Egypt’s legislative process.

“They participated in the 2005 legislative elections. They elected 88 members to the parliament. So they’ve had a role in the secular parliament,” Bassiouni said.

The government tried to get people back to work on Sunday, with banks and businesses reopening in the first clear test of how far protesters can keep up the momentum to topple the government.

But the protesters vowed not to back down in their demand for Mubarak to step down.

“They are steadfast and very sure in their aims and refuse to move,” an Al Jazeera correspondent in Cairo said.

Mass resignations
The leadership of Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) resigned en masse on Saturday, according to state television.

Hossam Badrawi was appointed the new secretary-general of the party, replacing Safwat El-Sherif, a Mubarak loyalist, in that post. Badrawi, seen by many as a liberal voice in the NDP, will also replace Gamal Mubarak, Hosni Mubarak’s son, as head of the party’s policies bureau.

Other new appointees include: Mohamed Ragah Ahmed, Mohamed Ahmed Abd El-Illah, Maged Mahmoud Younes El-Shirbiny, Mohamed Ahmed Abd El-Salam Hebah and Dr Mohamed Mostafa Kamal, according to an NDP press release.

Officials in the US administration welcomed the resignation of Gamal Mubarak, terming it a “positive” move.

But the administration has continued to insist upon an orderly and peaceful transition in Egypt.

Frank Wisner, who has acted as a White House envoy by carrying a message to Mubarak, said on Saturday that Mubarak “must stay in office to steer” a process of gathering “national consensus around the preconditions” for the way forward.

PJ Crowley, the US state department’s spokesman, said, however, that Wisner was speaking as a private citizen, and that his views did not represent those of the US government.

Ex-Israeli soldier admits leaking secret military files: BBC

During her military service, Anat Kamm worked as a clerk in the office of an army general
Continue reading the main story

A former Israeli soldier has admitted leaking secret military information to a newspaper.

Anat Kamm pleaded guilty in return for the prosecution dropping more serious charges, which included spying and harming state security.

According to the charges, she passed more than 2,000 documents to the daily Haaretz newspaper.

Kamm, 24, will be sentenced at a later date and faces a maximum jail sentence of 15 years.

The Tel Aviv District Court heard that between 2005 and 2007 Kamm copied secret documents from army computers while working as a clerk in the office of a general.

After leaving the army and while working for an Israeli website, she gave the documents to a reporter from Haaretz.

Haaretz later published a report about a possibly-illegal Israeli operation to kill Palestinian militants in the West Bank.

Kamm was arrested in December 2009 although her detainment was only made public four months later. She has since been under house arrest.

Kamm’s lawyer, Eitan Leman, said that the documents leaked to the Israeli journalist did not harm Israeli security.

Under the plea bargain, Kamm pleaded guilty to possessing and distributing secret information while the original charges that included harming state security were dropped.

Tel Aviv court accepts plea bargain in Anat Kamm espionage case: Haaretz

According to agreement, prosecutors will drop charge that Kamm intended to harm state security when she took classified IDF documents and passed them on to a Haaretz reporter.

The Tel Aviv District Court accepted a plea bargain on Sunday in the case of Anat Kamm, who is accused of handing secret army documents to Haaretz writer Uri Blau.

According to the indictment against Kamm, during her military service as clerk in the office of then-GOC Central Command, Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh, she collected about 2,000 documents, some highly classified and top-secret, and copied them to CDs and her personal computer.

The documents included plans for military operations, the minutes of internal discussions, details of the deployment of IDF forces, conclusions of internal investigations, situation assessments, target banks and more. She later delivered them to Blau, who used them in his reports.

According to the plea bargain, Kamm will not be charged with having the intention to harm the security of the state, a charge which carries with it a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.

Instead, Kamm will plead guilty to possession of secret information and passing it on without permission, crimes that carry a maximum punishment of 15 years in prison.

The prosecutor in the case, Hadas Forrer-Gafni, said that she intends to ask the court for the maximum punishment for Kamm. Forrer-Gafni added that a decision regarding Blau will be made in the next few weeks.

Kamm said about her potential punishment, “In the plea bargain I admitted to the charges against me, I cannot control what the law says.”

Kamm’s lawyer, Eitan Lehman, added “It was never her intention to harm the security of the state. The state knows that the documents were only held by the two [Kamm and Blau] and all information that was leaked to the public underwent censorship.”

“There is information the public did not receive, and may not receive in the near future, because discussions are confidential,” Lehman said. “I hope the court will realize that not only was there no intention to harm the security of the state, no harm was done.”

“Kamm’s motives were good. We hope the judges will understand that the house arrest she has been under is sufficient punishment,” Lehman said.
Since her arrest, Kamm has been under house arrest in Tel Aviv. The court has rejected every request she has filed to ease the terms of her detention.

The prosecutor said about the plea bargain that it “reduces the severity of the allegations against Kamm. However, at the end of the day, this is a serious offense. The indictment still includes two very serious crimes, even if they are not as harsh as the original charges. The punishment will be served accordingly.”

“In our eyes, when an Israeli soldier takes the most confidential documents from the army, it is a very serious offense. Passing the information on to another party, even if they are a journalist, with the knowledge that the material is not being safeguarded with confidentiality, is very grave indeed,” Forrer-Gafni added.

The sentencing portion of Kamm’s trial will begin on April 11, 2011, behind closed doors.

Continue reading February 6, 2011

February 5, 2011

EDITOR: The Sheikh Jarrakh demonstrators rename the local square Tahrir Square in honour of the Egyptian people and their revolution! (in Hebrew and Arabic)

EDITOR: the US is listening to Israel and Mubark

The US has today shifted its position again, now back to supporting the tyrant it has supported until last week. Well, a week is a long time in politics, and the US administration may well believe that people’s memory does not extend sucha long time back as last week. After 11 days of Israel making the point that Mubarak should be supported, bearing in mind whata good job he has been doing for them, the US has shifted top its default position again. Should we be surprised?

In Israel, where belief in democracy extends to democracy for Jews only, the democratic movement of Egypt is seen as a threat. The new government of Egypt may be far less pliable,  and may refuse to illegally blockade Gaza, for example, or to sell Israel gas at prices lower than to its own citizens… There may well be trouble ahead.

Following the Israeli lead, Jewish leaders in the US speak out this week. “He may be a barbarian, but he’s our barbarian”. Thus spoke John Rothmann, a former President of the Zionist Organization of America, now a talk show host for KGO radio in San Francisco. It is of course a paraphrase of FDR’s description of Somoza, the dictator of Nicaragua and Israel’s good friend: ‘he may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.’

It is good to hear such home truths from the horse’s mouth, certainly. Democracy when we do it, but nowhere else, and only on our terms. It is clear that the dominant voice of US Jews, totally supportive of Israel and its schemes of control of the Middle East, is again showing its true, undemocratic and hostile face. If you support Zionism, you cannot support democracy.

The Israelis are right to be worried, of course, about a state based on religious principles – just looking at the Jewish state and the damage it has caused to the whole Middle East, is reason enough to shun any other example of that political genre in Egypt or elsewhere.

U.S.: Mubarak must stay in power to steer reform in Egypt: Haaretz

Egyptian president said earlier he believed Egypt would descend into chaos if he were to give in to demands of the protesters and quit immediately.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak must stay in power for the time being to steer changes needed for political transition, U.S. President Barack Obama’s special envoy for Egypt said on Saturday.

“We need to get a national consensus around the pre-conditions for the next step forward. The president must stay in office to steer those changes,” Frank Wisner told the Munich Security Conference.

Mubarak, who has pledged to step down in September when a presidential election is scheduled, said on Thursday he believed Egypt would descend into chaos if he were to give in to almost two weeks of demands by an unprecedented popular revolt that he quit immediately.

The embattled president has fashioned himself as the crucial rampart against Islamist militancy in Egypt and the indispensable player in maintaining a peace treaty Egypt signed with Israel in 1979. But protesters are maintaining their position that they will no stop demonstrating until Mubarak leaves the government.

At the same security conference on Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that Egypt’s political transition should take place “as orderly but as expeditiously as possible” to give enough time for democratic elections to be prepared.

“President Mubarak has announced he will not stand for reelection nor will his son … He has given a clear message to his government to lead and support this process of transition,” Clinton told a Munich security conference.

“That is what the government has said it is trying to do, that is what we are supporting, and hope to see it move as orderly but as expeditiously as possible under the circumstances,” Clinton said.

Martin Rowson, Feb 5th 2011, The Guardian

EDITOR: Benny Morris barks again

The historian who sees the world from his own back pocket – he is the one who thinks that the Nakba did not go far enough, and should have dealt with all Palestinians, rather than only three quarters of them – is voicing the standard Israeli view: all should be arranged so as to satisfy the Israeli right. Normally, they get their way, so now they are bitterly opposed to reality.

The west must be wary of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood: The Guardian

The Brotherhood’s aim is to take over the Egyptian state through the democratic process – and then bring an end to democracy
Benny Morris
Opinion polls over the past decade have awarded the Brotherhood the support of between 30% and 60% of the populace, and it is the best organised and most powerful political party in the country. But while many of its supporters are taking part in the street demonstrations sweeping Egypt’s cities, the organisation has kept a deliberately low profile. The Brotherhood has not published its calculations, but one may assume they include a desire to avoid the mass arrest by the security services of its leadership cadres and a clash with the army, whose general staff – like Iran’s in 1978-79 – fear and detest the Islamists.

The Brotherhood also presumably wants to avoid deterring the secular middle class from participating in the popular upsurge, a participation that gives the popular revolt cachet abroad as well as at home (and in the greater Arab world). A display of Islamist leadership at the head of the crowds would alienate much of that middle class. So the Brotherhood has kept virtually out of sight.

But it has endorsed Mohamed ElBaradei as its choice to head a transitional regime. He is not exactly a household name in Egypt – he has lived abroad for the past three decades. As the head of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), a position he left in November 2009, he was frequently critical of the United States and Israel and was seen by some as an appeaser of Iran. No doubt his behaviour appealed to Egypt’s Islamists. But ElBaradei is western-educated and appears to be a secularist, and he is likely to be shunted aside by the religious fanatics once they feel confident enough to emerge from the shadows. ElBaradei will then have filled the role of the Mensheviks, who paved the way for the eventual Bolshevik takeover of Russia in 1917.

For now, the Brotherhood will be satisfied with toppling the hated Mubarak regime, which, following the Gamal Abdel Nasser (1954-1970) and Anwar Sadat (1970-1981) regimes, has serially imprisoned and tortured the Brotherhood’s cadres for decades. Above all, the organisation no doubt wants the prospective interim regime to organise and oversee free and fair general elections, say in six months’ time.

But once the campaigning for these elections gets under way, we will see the country awash with Muslim Brotherhood activists and placards, broadcasts and sermons; perhaps even a measure of intimidation and violence. The Brotherhood’s aim is to take over the state through the democratic process, and is likely, as one of its first acts, to annul Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

It is possible that the movement will follow the model of Turkey’s Islamists and try to follow democratic norms and adopt a stance of neutrality between Iran and the west. But it is more likely, given Egypt’s position and history, and its own history, that the Brotherhood will follow the model of Iran and the Gaza Hamas. Both have employed extreme violence to crush their potential and real rivals to maintain power.

The Brotherhood is anything if not patient. It has looked to take over, and “purify”, Egypt since the movement’s foundation by Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Given the power of its enemies and the state’s institutions, the movement’s leadership has traditionally advocated a non-violent route to power (it was usually the movement’s more impatient breakaways, like the Jama’a al Islamiyya, who murdered Sadat in 1981, who went in for blatant violence). But observers in the west should not delude themselves. This is not a movement for which democracy has any appeal, worth or value. Its leaders see democratic processes merely as means to an end, an end that includes an end to democracy.

Israel isn’t the center of the Mideast, or of the world: Haaretz

The problem with Orientalist discourse of our commentators − which sees the world through the prism of the Shin Bet Security Service − is that it helps to seal off the ghetto into which we are gradually locking ourselves, a ghetto within the Middle East and within world history.
By Yitzhak Laor

Since the 18th century, revolution has shaped the world and its consciousness as a universal experience of popular sovereignty, from east to west, from north to south. But in the face of the Egyptian revolution, a kind of mean-spiritedness has been evident here in Israel − for example, in the television commentary. Commentators and moderators never stopped giving grades for behavior. A huge comet flashed past us, and Channel 2 commentator’s muttered, like the survivor of a traffic accident: Had they only suppressed the demonstrations at the start, everything would have been different.

Again and again, they searched for Islamic signs in the pictures of the masses, as though they were immigration officials checking for smallpox. Others were excited to discover signs that reminded them of “us”: Facebook, young people speaking English, and of course women in jeans. There’s nothing like a woman’s thighs as an index of progress.

But the person who deserves the prize for folly is Dr. Oded Eran, formerly our ambassador to Jordan. He suggested organizing elections in Egypt under European supervision, to ensure that monitors would turn a blind eye to fraud by the regime during the vote count.
For years, our Orientalists saw a danger in ‏(secular‏) Arab nationalism. Both the right and the left examined Arab intellectuals with a fine-toothed comb in order to prove that they were “pan-Arabists.” What lay behind this, always, was a colonialist questioning of their right to self-determination on a par with our own standards.

But today, when people no longer demonstrate in Lebanon’s squares on behalf of Lebanese Arabism, and when nobody is singing paeans to the Arab nation in the streets of Cairo, our examiners are rewriting the questionnaire: Instead of “nationalists,” they are looking for “religious people.”

The problem with such discourse − which sees the world through the prism of the Shin Bet Security Service, with no inhibitions and no curiosity about what is unique to Egypt − is that it helps to seal off the ghetto into which we are gradually locking ourselves, a ghetto within the Middle East and within world history. We should recall Israel’s attitude to the nationalization of the Suez Canal, the “rotten business” we perpetrated in Egypt in the early 1950s, the 1956 Sinai Campaign, the affinity between these events and our alliance with the shah of Iran and his murderous security services, and the affinity between all these and the coronation of Bachir Gemayel as Lebanon’s ruler on the broken blades of Israel Defense Forces bayonets.

Forget about the strategic dimension. The issue is that military interests have always trained intellectual integrity and analysis to provide them with justifications and the status of “the truth.” The adoption of the region’s oppressive elites was carried out with the help of Shimon Peres-style language laundering and constant conciliatory gestures toward the West: We’ll be a base for you in the heart of darkness − even now, when the West is turning its back on these politics. After all, that is the only historical significance these events have as far as we are concerned: The United States no longer needs this offer.

Our ideas about the Arab world are blind to the sufferings of the nations around us and their hatred of their rulers. The average annual income in Egypt is $6,200; Israelis’ average annual income is almost $30,000. Will stability in the relations between two such countries be guaranteed by a huge, brutal police force, of all things? That is the discussion that we haven’t yet had.

The Egyptian revolution is costing blood. A great deal of blood. No elite leaves of its own free will, even if its sponsors in Washington have decided to get rid of it. Spontaneous action is fated to decline, and in the absence of a revolutionary party, it is not at all clear what will happen. The Egyptian opposition has been repressed for years, and there, too, the left has drowned in European subsidies to dozens of different human rights NGOs, which are always interested in obedient monitoring rather than change.

Nobody knows where the revolution will end up: in an Iranian-style republic? In something along Turkish lines? Or perhaps something new, the likes of which we’ve never experienced? At the moment, there is no need to reply, but only to think and remember this: It doesn’t all revolve around us. And in the face of the Egyptian people’s heroism, we should bow our heads in humility.

Continue reading February 5, 2011

February 2, 2011

BREAKING NEWS!!!

Clashes rage in Tahrir Square: Al Jazeera online

At least one dead and hundreds injured as pro-Mubarak supporters attack protesters seeking his ouster in central Cairo.

Clashes have broken out between pro- and anti-government demonstrators in the Egyptian capital Cairo.

Protesters from both sides threw stones at each other in Tahrir Square, the epicentre of ongoing opposition demonstrations against President Hosni Mubarak for the past nine days

The health ministry said at least one person had been killed and another 400 injured in Wednesday’s violence.

Al Jazeera correspondents, reporting from the scene, said clashes were still raging and that petrol bombs were being hurled.

Earlier, witnesses said the military allowed thousands of pro-Mubarak supporters, armed with sticks and knives, to enter the square. Opposition groups said Mubarak had sent in thugs to suppress anti-government protests.

One of our correspondents said the army seemed to be standing by and facilitating the clashes. Latest reports suggest that the centre of the square is still in control of the protesters, despite the pro-Mubarak supporters gaining ground.

‘Absolute mayhem’

Witnesses also said that pro-Mubarak supporters were dragging away protesters they had managed to grab and handing them over to security forces.

Salma Eltarzi, an anti-government protester, told Al Jazeera there were hundreds of wounded people.

“There are no ambulances in sight, and all we are using is Dettol,” she said. “We are all so scared.”

Aisha Hussein, a nurse, said dozens of people were being treated at a makeshift clinic in a mosque near the square.

She described a scene of “absolute mayhem”, as protesters first began to flood into the clinic.

“People are coming in with multiple wounds. All kinds of contusions. We had one guy who needed stitches in two places on his face. Some have broken bones.”

Meanwhile, another Al Jazeera correspondent said men on horseback and camels had ploughed into the crowds, as army personnel stood by.

At least six riders were dragged from their beasts, beaten with sticks by the protesters and taken away with blood streaming down their faces.

One of them was dragged away unconscious, with large blood stains on the ground at the site of the clash.

The worst of the fighting was just outside the world famous Egyptian Museum, which was targeted by looters last week.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent added that several a group of pro-government protesters took over army vehicles. They also took control of a nearby building and used the rooftop to throw concrete blocks, stones, and other objects.

Soldiers surrounding the square took cover from flying stones, and the windows of at least one army truck were broken. Some troops stood on tanks and appealed for calm but did not otherwise intervene.

Many of the pro-Mubarak supporters raised slogans like “Thirty Years of Stability, Nine Days of Anarchy”.

Al Jazeera’s online producer in Cairo said rocks were continously being thrown from both sides. He said that though the army had put up barricades around the square, they let the pro-Mubarak supporters through.

“The people on horses are pro-Mubarak supporters, they are a very angry crowd looking for anyone working for Al Jazeera and for Americans. They are trying to get on the other side of the army tanks to get to the anti-Mubarak supporters. More and more pro-Mubarak supporters are coming in.”

Violence

Al Jazeera’s Jane Dutton, also in Cairo, said that security guards have also been seen amongst the pro-Mubarak supporters, and it may be a precursor to the feared riot police arriving on the scene.

Dutton added that a journalist with the Al-Arabiya channel was stabbed during the clashes.

Fighting took place around army tanks deployed around the square, with stones bouncing off the armoured vehicles.

Several groups were involved in fist fights, and some were using clubs.  The opposition also said many among the pro-Mubarak crowd were policemen in plain clothes.

“But we will not leave … Everybody stay put”

Khalil, anti-government protester

“Members of security forces dressed in plain clothes and a number of thugs have stormed Tahrir Square,” three opposition groups said in a statement.

Mohamed ElBaradei, a prominent opposition figure, accused Mubarak of resorting to scare tactics. Opposition groups have reportedly also seized police identification cards amongst the pro-Mubarak demonstrators.

“I’m extremely concerned, I mean this is yet another symptom, or another indication, of a criminal regime using criminal acts,” ElBaradei said.

“My fear is that it will turn into a bloodbath,” he added, calling the pro-Mubarak supporters a “bunch of thugs”.

But according to state television, the minister of interior denied that plain clothes police had joined pro-Mubarak demonstrations.

Elbaradei has also urged the army to intervene.

“I ask the army to intervene to protect Egyptian lives,” he told Al Jazeera, adding he said it should intervene “today” and not remain neutral.

Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy director for Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, told Al Jazeera that the clashes look to be orchestrated.

“It is not the first time the Mubarak government has provoked clashes to quell protests, but if it truly is orchestrated, this is a cynical and bloody approach,” she said.

“The army look to be not intervening at all, and the question remains as to whether they have been ordered not to step in.”

The army has told state television that citizens should arrest those who have stolen military clothing, and to hand them over.

Determined protesters

Despite the clashes, anti-government protesters seeking Mubarak’s immediate resignation said they would not give up until Mubarak steps down.

Pro-Mubarak supporters came riding on camels and horses [Al Jazeera/online producer]
Khalil, in his 60s and holding a stick, blamed Mubarak supporters and undercover security for the clashes.

“But we will not leave,” he told Reuters. “Everybody stay put.”

Mohammed el-Belgaty, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, told Al Jazeera the “peaceful demonstrations in Tahrir Square have been turned into chaos”.

“The speech delivered by President Mubarak was very provocative as he used very sentimental words.

“Since morning, hundreds of these paid thugs started to demonstrate pretending to be supporting the President. Now they came to charge inside Tahrir Square armed with batons, sticks and some knives.

“Mubarak is asking the people to choose between him or chaos.”

Ahead of Wednesday’s clashes, supporters of the president staged a number of rallies around Cairo, saying Mubarak represented stability amid growing insecurity, and calling those who want his departure “traitors.”

“Yes to Mubarak, to protect stability,” read one banner in a crowd of 500 gathered near state television headquarters, about 1km from Tahrir Square.

A witness said organisers were paying people $17, to take part in the pro-Mubarak rally, a claim that could not be confirmed.

Other pro-Mubarak demonstrations occurred in the Mohandeseen district, as well as near Ramses Square.

EDITOR: The Dictator totters at last!

Now the that the US president has abandoned his pet, it seems the Egyptian tyrant is loosing some of his venom, but non of his self-deceit. While he now ‘agrees to to stand again’ in September, it is clear that this malignant politician will have to leave now, rather than to torment the Egyptians for another period of madness.

Last night, in a mad scramble to stick to his seat, he even sent a rent-a-crowd to chant “we want Mubarak” at Tahrir Square, as if this was going to fool anyone… He is definitely on his way out now.

Hosni Mubarak vows to stand down at next election – but not now: The Guardian

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s announcement that he will serve out remaining term immediately rejected by angry crowds

Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak said: ‘I will die on the soil of Egypt and be judged by history.’ Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Egypt’s embattled president, Hosni Mubarak, last night bowed to the pressure of millions of people massing on the streets, pledging to step down at the next election and pave the way for a new leader of the Arab world’s largest country.

But Barack Obama, who effectively withdrew US support for the leader of its key Arab ally in a day of fast moving developments, gave an equivocal welcome to the speech by saying that “change must begin now” while praising the “passion and dignity” of the demonstrators in the streets as an inspiration.

Mubarak said he would not be a candidate for a seventh term but would remain in power to oversee reform and guarantee stability – a position that was immediately rejected by angry crowds and promised yet more drama in Egypt’s extraordinary crisis.

“In the few months remaining in my current term I will work towards ensuring a peaceful transition of power,” Mubarak said. “I have exhausted my life in serving Egypt and my people. I will die on the soil of Egypt and be judged by history” – a clear reference to the fate of Tunisia’s president who fled into exile last month.

Looking grave as he spoke on state TV in front of the presidential seal, Mubarak attacked those responsible for protests that had been “manipulated by political forces”, caused mayhem and chaos and endangered the “stability of the nation”.

In a defiant, finger-wagging performance the 82-year-old said he was always going to quit in September – ” a position he had never made public until now.

Opposition leaders had already warned throughout a dramatic eighth day of mass protests that only Mubarak’s immediate departure would satisfy them.

The Egyptian leader made his announcement after meeting a White House special envoy who conveyed the message that Washington had in effect withdrawn US support for the man who had been the linchpin of its Middle East strategy.

The White House declined to reveal details of the message conveyed by the envoy, Frank Wisner, a former US ambassador to Cairo who is close to Mubarak other than to say he urged him not to seek re-election. But after the Egyptian leader’s speech, Obama spoke to Mubarak for 30 minutes and then made a statement at the White House in which he praised the protesters and called for the transition of power to begin immediately.

But the US president did not explicitly call for Mubarak to resign immediately, leaving open the possibility of Washington accepting the Egyptian leader overseeing the transition in the face of unprecedented protests and an insistence by opposition leaders that they would not negotiate while Mubarak remains in power.

“What is clear, and what I indicated tonight to President Mubarak, is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful and it must begin now,” said Obama.

“Furthermore the process must include a broad spectrum of Egyptian voices and opposition parties. It should lead to elections that are free and fair.”

But in Washington and Cairo there were questions over the Obama administration’s position with some Americanpoliticians, such as John Kerry, chairman of the Senate’s foreign affairs committee, saying Mubarak must resign immediately.

Certainly many Egyptians want that. “May it be tonight, oh God,” chanted the crowds in Cairo’s Tahrir Square as they waited to hear the historic speech.

Mubarak’s statement came at the end of a day that saw epic protests. Millions of people rallied across the country.

“Illegitimate,” chanted the vast crowds choking Tahrir Square. “He [Mubarak] will leave, we will not leave,” went another slogan, in a festive atmosphere that belied the tense stalemate that has emerged between the people and the regime over an extraordinary 48 hours.

With the army standing by its landmark pledge not to use force against demonstrators, Mubarak faced an intense and co-ordinated US campaign to persuade him and the powerful Egyptian military to effect “an orderly transition”.

But as troops barricaded the presidential palace with barbed wire, Egypt’s fractured opposition rallied together to reject any talks with the ruling National Democratic party on political reform, insisting the president must stand down before any dialogue can get under way.

On Monday, Mubarak ordered his new vice-president and intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, to begin a dialogue with opposition groups, including the powerful Muslim Brotherhood. “Omar Suleiman approached us, and we have rejected his approaches,” Essam el-Arian, a Brotherhood spokesman, told the Guardian. “As long as Mubarak delays his departure, these protests will remain and they will only get bigger.”

Mohammed ElBaradei, 68, the former UN nuclear weapons inspector who has been nominated to lead any negotiations, met protesters and the US ambassador to Egypt, Margaret Scobey, insisting afterwards that no talks were possible while the president remained in power.

“I hope to see Egypt peaceful and that’s going to require as a first step the departure of President Mubarak,” he told al-Arabiya TV. “If President Mubarak leaves then everything else will progress correctly.”Mass protests were reported across Egypt, including in Alexandria, Suez and many other cities.

Underlining the regional impact of the crisis, the Jordanian prime minister was sacked after weeks of protests over price rises and unemployment and inspired by events in Tunisia and now Egypt.

The Foreign Office said in a statement last night: “We have been clear in public, and with President Mubarak and his government in private, about the need for a transition to a broader-based government that will produce real, visible and comprehensive change.”

William Hague, the foreign secretary, said a charter flight would be sent to Cairo to bring Britons back but they would have to pay £300 for the service.

Hiding behind the tanks, by Carlos Latuff

Continue reading February 2, 2011