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| Supporters of Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi carry coffins, covered with the national flag, of four men killed after Egyptian troops opened fire on mostly Islamist protesters marching on a Republican Guard headquarters Friday, in Cairo, Saturday, July 6, 2013. |
CAIRO (AP) --
Egypt's new president moved to assert his authority and regain control
of the streets Saturday even as his Islamist opponents declared his
powers illegitimate and issued blood oaths to reinstate Mohammed Morsi,
whose ouster by the military has led to dueling protests and deadly
street battles between rival sides.
But
underscoring the sharp divisions facing the untested leader, Adly
Mansour, his office said pro-reform leader Mohamed ElBaradei had been
named as interim prime minister but later backtracked on the decision
saying consultations were continuing. A politician close to ElBaradei
said the reversal was due to objections by an ultraconservative Islamist
party with which the new administration wants to cooperate.
Mansour's
administration, meanwhile, has begun trying to dismantle Morsi's
legacy. He fired Morsi's intelligence chief and the presidential
palace's chief of staff. Prosecutors, meanwhile, ordered four detained
stalwarts of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood held for 15 days pending an
investigation into the shooting deaths of eight protesters last week.
No
major violence was reported between supporters and opponents of Morsi
as the two sides sought to regroup after a night of fierce clashes that
turned downtown Cairo into a battlefield. Clashes were also fierce in
the port city of Alexandria, where thousands from both sides fought each
other with automatic rifles, firebombs and clubs.
Friday's
violence left 36 dead, taking to at least 75 the number of people
killed since the unrest began on June 30, when millions of protesters
took to the streets on the anniversary of Morsi's inauguration as
Egypt's first democratically elected president.
Morsi,
a U.S.-trained engineer who was widely accused by critics of
monopolizing power for himself and the Brotherhood as well as his
failure to implement democratic and economic reforms, remained under
detention in an undisclosed location.
Tensions
were still high as tens of thousands of Morsi supporters rallied for a
third day near a mosque in a Cairo neighborhood that has traditionally
been a stronghold of Islamists, chanting angry slogans against what they
called a coup by Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. The general has denied the
military staged a coup, saying he was acting on the wishes of millions
of Egyptians protesting the ex-Islamist leader.
"El-Sissi
is a traitor," declared an English language banner bearing an image of
the army's chief and hoisted by Morsi's supporters.
Setting
up another showdown, the youth opposition group behind the series of
mass protests that led to Morsi's ouster called on Egyptians to take to
the streets on Sunday to show support for the new order.
Mansour,
67, the former chief justice of the country's Supreme Constitutional
Court who was installed by the military as an interim leader, is
little-known in international circles and the choice of ElBaradei would
have given his administration a prominent global face to make its case
to Washington and other Western allies trying to reassess policies.
But news of ElBaradei's appointment, which was reported by the state news agency MENA and others, proved divisive.
The
71-year-old Nobel laureate was an inspiring figure to the youth groups
behind the 2011 revolution that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak as well
as the uprising against Morsi. His appointment as prime minister would
cement Mansour's support among the young anti-Morsi protesters.
But
a senior opposition official close to ElBaradei, Munir Fakhry Abdelnur,
told The Associated Press that the last minute reversal was because the
ultraconservative Salafi el-Nour party was opposed.
Mansour's
spokesman Ahmed el-Musalamani denied that the appointment of the former
U.N. nuclear negotiator was ever certain. However, reporters gathered
at the presidential palace ahead of his news conference were told
earlier that the president would arrive shortly to announce it.
The
dispute over ElBaradei underlines the fragmentation of Egypt's politics
as the country continues to be roiled by bout after bout of unrest and
violence since Mubarak's ouster.
The 2011
uprising opened the way for the political rise of the Muslim
Brotherhood, which was long suppressed by Mubarak's Western-backed
regime, and Morsi was elected last year by a narrow margin. The
fundamentalist movement swiftly rejected ElBaradei's appointment.
The
Brotherhood has vowed to boycott the political process, saying the
military maneuver was a coup that overturned a democratically elected
government.
"Now it's clear that the Mubarak
regime has the upper hand," Brotherhood spokesman Ahmed Aref alleged.
"We cannot accept the strategy of arm twisting; we cannot accept the
authority being snatched by force," he told The AP.
The
group's powerful deputy Khairat el-Shater, former leader Mahdi Akef,
Rashad Bayoumi and Saad el-Ketatni have been accused of inciting
violence against protesters in Cairo.
The silver-haired new president, meanwhile, insisted national reconciliation was his top priority.
"Enough
already with divisions," he told reporters on Saturday. "We need to
mobilize our forces to build this nation," he said. He also called on
the Brotherhood to join the political process. "The Brotherhood is a
part of this nation, if they decide to join, we will welcome them."
"I
want everyone to pray for me. Your prayers are what I need from you,"
he told worshippers on Friday in comments published Saturday by the
independent el-Tahrir daily.
On Saturday, he
met with el-Sissi and Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim, who is in
charge of the police. Later he met with the three young leaders of
Tamarod, or Rebel, which organized the massive opposition protests that
began June 30.
Despite his words, both sides
braced for the possibility of more violence as Egypt's political
unraveling increasingly left little room for middle ground or dialogue.
In
the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, gunmen shot dead a Christian
priest while he shopped for food in an outdoor market on Saturday. It
was not immediately clear if the shooting was linked to the political
crisis, but minority Christians have faced increased attacks in the wake
of the Islamist rise to power in the nation of 90 million people.
In
Cairo's eastern suburb of Nasr City near the Rabaah al-Adawaiya mosque -
the main rallying Muslim Brotherhood rallying point - lines of fighters
brandished homemade weapons and body armor at road blocks decorated
with Morsi's picture.
"The people here and in
all of Egypt's squares are ready for martyrdom to restore legitimacy,"
said Abdullah Shehatah, a senior leader of the Freedom and Justice
Party, the Brotherhood's political arm. "This coup and all its
institutions are illegal."
Next door in the
relatively upscale Heliopolis district, people chanted against Morsi and
honked car horns in appreciation of roadblocks manned by Egypt's
military.
Security forces boosted their presence with armored personnel carriers and checkpoints across the nation's capital.
By
nightfall, however, the number of Morsi supporters swelled with people
hoisting Morsi posters and, at one point, chanting in English for the
benefit of the foreign media. "Free Egypt," they chanted. Smaller crowds
gathered elsewhere in Cairo, including about 2,000 outside the
headquarters of the Republican Guard, where Morsi was first confined by
the military before he was taken to an undisclosed Defense Ministry
facility.
Soldiers in full combat gear watched from behind razor wire.
A
Cairo court, meanwhile, adjourned to Aug. 17 the retrial of Mubarak
over charges of corruption and involvement in the killing of protesters
during the 2011 uprising that ousted him. Mubarak and his two sons, Alaa
and Gamal, who are on trial for corruption, appeared at the court
session on Saturday.
