Cairo street battle surges; 4 dead
Protesters clash with Cairo police for second day after football stadium riot kills 74 people. Police using tear gas to disperse demonstrators; four dead, dozens injured
Rock-throwing protesters fought riot police through clouds of teargas to within meters of Egypt's Interior Ministry on a second day of clashes triggered by the deaths of 74 people in the country's worst soccer disaster.
Four people were reported dead in Cairo and in the city of Suez two people were killed as police used live rounds to hold back crowds trying to break into a police station and fought in front of the state security headquarters, witnesses and the ambulance authority said.
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'They came at us with machetes'
Most of those killed in the Port Said football stadium on Wednesday night were crushed in a stampede and the government declared three days of mourning, but protesters hold the military-led authorities responsible.
It was country's deadliest incident since an uprising ousted Hosni Mubarak almost a year ago and it gave fresh impetus to regular street protests against Egypt's ruling generals.
Chaos on streets of Cairo (Photo: AFP)
"We will stay until we get our rights. Did you see what happened in Port Said?" said 22-year-old Abu Hanafy, who arrived from work on Thursday evening and decided to join the protest.
The ministry in Cairo, an object of hatred for football fans who say lax policing was to blame for the stadium disaster, has been hemmed in by the street battles since Thursday.
Protesters face security forces (Photo: AFP)
Thousands were still battling riot police there and more protesters were expected to gather in the centre of the capital for a "Friday of Anger" declared by 28 youth activist groups and political parties.
A witness heard firing and found gun pellets on the ground. A core of demonstrators had heaved aside a concrete barrier blocking a main road near the ministry overnight to get closer to the building.
"We pulled it down with our bare hands," said Abdul-Ghani Mohamed, a 32-year-old construction worker. "We are the sons of the pharaohs."
Protesters hurling stones at security forces (Photo: AP)
Ambulances had to intervene overnight to extract riot police whose truck took a wrong turn into a street full of protesters.
Police fired round after round of teargas but the wind picked up on Friday afternoon to waft the fumes back to the police lines, leading the rioting protesters, some of whom waved soccer team flags, to cry "God is Greatest".
Some of the demonstrators, mostly men in their late teens and 20s, goaded the security forces defending the neat five-story ministry building, shouting "The army, the police - one filthy hand".
Destruction in Suez
Close to 400 people have been hurt in the confrontations since Thursday, the Health Ministry said, many of them by inhaling teargas.
An army lieutenant was killed by a security vehicle that ran over him by mistake, Health Ministry officials said.
Rocks thrown by protesters were strewn across streets that two months ago witnessed violent clashes between police and activists who see the Interior Ministry as an unreformed vestige of Mubarak's rule.
The soccer stadium deaths have heaped new criticism on the military council that has governed Egypt since Mubarak stepped down. Critics regard the generals as part of his administration and an obstacle to change.
The army leadership, in turn, has presented itself as the guardian of the "Jan. 25 revolution" and promised to hand power to an elected president by the end of June.
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