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| Supporters and opponents of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi clash in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, July 5, 2013. Tens of thousands of Islamists streamed across a Nile River bridge toward Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday, threatening a showdown moments after the top leader of the Muslim Brotherhood defiantly spoke before a cheering crowd of supporters, vowing to reinstate ousted President Mohammed Morsi and end military rule. |
CAIRO (AP) --
Enraged Islamists pushed back Friday against the toppling of President
Mohammed Morsi, as tens of thousands of his supporters took to the
streets vowing to win his reinstatement and clashed with their opponents
in violence that killed 30 and drove the divided nation toward an
increasingly dangerous showdown.
In a battle
on a bridge over the Nile River in Cairo, gunfire rang out and flames
leaped from a burning car as the rival camps threw volleys of stones and
fireworks at each other. Military armored vehicles raced across the
bridge in a counterattack on Morsi's supporters.
The
clashes accelerated after the supreme leader of Morsi's Muslim
Brotherhood defiantly proclaimed that his followers would not give up
street action until the return of the country's first freely elected
president, swept out of power days earlier by the military. Morsi
opponents called out the public to defend against the Brotherhood,
deepening the battle lines.
In scenes of mayhem, troops opened fire on peaceful pro-Morsi protesters. Islamists threw one opponent off a rooftop.
"God
make Morsi victorious and bring him back to the palace," Brotherhood
chief Mohammed Badie proclaimed before cheering supporters at a Cairo
mosque in his first appearance since the overthrow. "We are his soldiers
we defend him with our lives."
Badie said it
was a matter of honor for the military to abide by its pledge of loyalty
to the president, in what appeared to be an attempt to pull it away
from its leadership.
"Your leader is Morsi.
... Return to the people of Egypt," he said. "Your bullets are not to be
fired on your sons and your own people."
Hours
later, Badie's deputy, Khairat el-Shater, considered the most powerful
figure in the organization, was arrested in a Cairo apartment along with
his brother on allegations of inciting violence, Interior Ministry
spokesman Hani Abdel-Latif told The Associated Press.
After
the speech, a large crowd of Islamists surged across 6th October Bridge
over the Nile toward Tahrir Square, where a giant crowd of Morsi's
opponents had been massed all day. Battles broke out there and near the
neighboring state TV building. Pro-Morsi youth shielded themselves from
flying stones and fireworks with sheets of barricaded metal. A car
burned at the top of an exit ramp amid the sounds of automatic weapons
and shotguns.
"They are firing at us, sons of
dogs! Where is the army?" one Morsi opponent shouted as another was
brought to medics with his jeans soaked in blood from leg wounds. At
least three people were killed at the bridge.
The
fighting ended when at least seven armored personnel carriers sped
across the bridge, chasing away the Morsi supporters. Young civilians
jumped onto the roofs of the APCs, shouting insults at the Islamists and
chanting, "The people and army are one hand."
Across
the country, clashes erupted as Morsi supporters tried to storm local
government buildings or military facilities, battling police or Morsi
opponents. At least 30 people were killed throughout the day in Egypt,
with 210 wounded, Heath Ministry official Khaled el-Khatib told The
Associated Press.
Islamists descended on
anti-Morsi rally, opening fire with guns in the Mediterranean coastal
city of Alexandria, where at least 12 people were killed, mostly Morsi
opponents, emergency services official Amr Salama said. One man was
stabbed and thrown from the roof of a building by Morsi supporters after
he raised an Egyptian flag and shouted insults against the ousted
president, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene.
Five
policemen killed by militants in shootings around the Sinai city of
el-Arish, according to security officials speaking on condition of
anonymity because not authorized to talk to the press.
The
U.S. State Department condemned the violence and called on all Egyptian
leaders to denounce the use of force and prevent further bloodshed
among their supporters.
"The voices of all who
are protesting peacefully must be heard - including those who welcomed
the events of earlier this week and those who supported President
Morsi," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement. "The
Egyptian people must come together to resolve their differences
peacefully."
Col. Ahmed Ali, a spokesman for
the armed forces, said the Muslim Brotherhood was trying to "pick a
fight" with the army and "drag it to a clash in order to send a message
to the West that what happened in the country is a coup and that the
military is cracking down on the peaceful protesters."
That
mirrored a statement from an umbrella group of Morsi opponents -
including the National Salvation Front and youth groups. The group urged
the public to take to the streets immediately "to defend popular
legitimacy" against what they called a "malicious plot" by the
Brotherhood.
Islamists vowed to show by their
numbers and the turmoil that the military had made a mistake by removing
Morsi on Wednesday night. The action followed mass demonstrations for
four days this week by the president's opponents in the biggest rallies
the country has seen.
"The military got itself
in a trap by taking one side. Now they see the masses in the streets
and now they realized that there are two peoples," Hamada Nassar, a
figure from the hard-line former militant group, Gamaa Islamiya, told
AP.
An interim president - senior judge Adly
Mansour - was sworn in Thursday, and a Cabinet of technocrats is to be
formed to run Egypt until new elections can be held, although officials
have not said when that will be. Mansour dissolved the interim
parliament - the upper house of the legislature - which was
overwhelmingly dominated by Islamists and Morsi allies. He also named
the head of General Intelligence, Rafaat Shehata, as his security
adviser.
The Islamists called rallies Friday
to express their outrage at Morsi's ouster. The Brotherhood has said it
will not work with the new military-backed leadership, and Morsi's
supporters say the armed forces have wrecked Egypt's democracy by
carrying out a coup against an elected president.
They
accuse loyalists of former leader Hosni Mubarak, ousted in 2011, and
liberal and secular opposition parties of turning to the army for help
because they lost the election to Islamists. Many also see it as a
conspiracy against Islam.
The turmoil began in
the afternoon when army troops opened fire as hundreds of his
supporters marched on the Republican Guard building in Cairo. That site
is where Morsi was staying when he was toppled before being taken into
military custody at an undisclosed location.
The
crowd approached a barbed wire barrier where troops were standing
guard. When one person hung a sign of Morsi on the barrier, soldiers
tore it down and told the crowd to stay back. A protester put up a
second sign, and the soldiers opened fire, according to an AP
photographer.
A protester fell dead with a
gaping, bleeding wound in the back of his head, while others were
bloodied and wounded. Witnesses told AP Television News at the scene
that men in plain clothes fired the lethal shots. The Health Ministry
said a total of four were killed at the site, though it was not known
how all died.
Protesters threw stones at the
troops, who responded with volleys of tear gas. Many of those injured
had wounds typical of birdshot. The BBC's Middle East editor, Jeremy
Bowen, was hit by birdshot in the head as he covered the clashes but
said his injuries were superficial.
Badie made
his appearance three hours later on a stage in front of tens of
thousands of Islamists massed at Rabia al-Adawiya Mosque, not far from
the Republican Guard building.
Morsi "is my
president and your president and the president of all Egyptians," Badie
proclaimed, thrusting his arms in the air, as a military helicopter
circled low overhead.
The gray-haired Badie is
a revered figure among the Brotherhood's followers, who swear an oath
of absolute obedience to him - to "hear and obey."
The
circumstances of his appearance were a mystery. Security officials had
said Badie was taken into custody from a villa on the Mediterranean
coast soon after Morsi's removal Wednesday night and flown to Cairo,
part of a sweep that netted at least five other senior Brotherhood
figures and put around 200 more on wanted lists.
Just
before his speech, the Brotherhood's political party said on its
webpage that Badie had "been released." On stage, however, Badie denied
he had been arrested. There was no immediate explanation from security
officials.
Authorities also announced the
release of Saad Katatni, head of the Brotherhood's political arm the
Freedom and Justice Party, as well as one of Badie's deputies, Rashad
Bayoumi, pending further investigation.
Fears
have been running high over an Islamist backlash to Morsi's overthrow.
Extremist Islamist groups that gained considerable freedom to operate
during Morsi's year in office have already vowed violence in
retaliation.
The first major militant attack
came before dawn Friday in the tumultuous Sinai Peninsula, killing at
least one soldier. Masked assailants launched a coordinated attack with
rockets, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft guns on the airport
in the northern Sinai city of el-Arish, where military aircraft are
located. Also hit was a security forces camp in Rafah on the border with
Gaza, and five other military and police posts.
One
of military's top commanders, Gen. Ahmed Wasfi, arrived at el-Arish to
lead operations there as the army declared a "war on terrorism" in
Sinai. A crowd of Morsi supporters tried to storm the governor's office
in the city but were dispersed by security forces.
On
the night of Morsi's ouster, jihadi groups rallied in el-Arish, vowing
to fight. "War council, war council," a speaker shouted, according to
online video of the rally. "No peacefulness after today."
Islamic
militants hold a powerful sway in the lawless northern Sinai. They are
heavily armed with weapons smuggled from Libya and have links with
militants in the neighboring Gaza Strip, run by Hamas. After the attack,
Egypt indefinitely closed its border crossing into Gaza, sending 200
Palestinians back into the territory, said Gen. Sami Metwali, director
of Rafah passage.
At the Rabia al-Adawiya
Mosque rally earlier in the day, the crowd filled much of a broad
boulevard, vowing to stay until Morsi is reinstated. The protesters
railed against what they called the return of the Mubarak regime.
"The
old regime has come back ... worse than before," said Ismail
Abdel-Mohsen, an 18-year-old student at the mosque rally. He described
the interim president as "the military puppet."
"After
sunset, President Morsi will be back in the palace," they chanted. "The
people want God's law.
Islamic, Islamic, whether the army likes it or
not."
Many held copies of the Quran in the
air, and much of the crowd had the long beards of ultraconservative men
or encompassing black robes and veils worn by women.
One
protester shouted that the sheik of Al-Azhar, Egypt's top Muslim cleric
who backed the military, was "an agent of the Christians" - reflecting a
sentiment that the Christian minority was behind Morsi's ouster.
In
southern Egypt, Islamists attacked the main church in the city of Qena.
In the town of Dabaiya near the city of Luxor, a mob torched houses of
Christians, sending dozens seeking shelter in a police station.
