Rival protesters clash as Cairo descends into chaos

Anti-government protesters clashed violently with supporters of President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo today as Egypt’s political upheaval took a dangerous new turn.

In scenes of chaos, the two sides pelted each other with stones and other weapons, and pro-government attackers on horseback and camels were dragged off the animals and beaten.

The turmoil was the first significant violence between supporters of the two camps in more than a week of anti-government protests.

It erupted after Mr Mubarak went on national television last night and rejected demands he step down immediately, saying he would serve out the remaining seven months of his term.

A military spokesman appeared on state TV this morning and urged protesters to disperse so life in Egypt could get back to normal.

But nearly 10,000 protesters massed again in Tahrir Square, rejecting Mr Mubarak’s speech as too little too late and renewing their demands for him to leave immediately.

Hours later, around 3,000 Mubarak supporters broke through a human chain of anti-government protesters trying to defend thousands gathered in Tahrir, according to eyewitnesses.

Chaos erupted as they tore down banners denouncing the president. Fist-fights broke out as they advanced across the massive square in the heart of the capital, with the anti-government movement grabbing posters from the hands of their rivals and ripping them up.

From there the violence escalated into street battles, with protesters on both sides tearing up stones from the street and from a nearby construction site and hurling stones, chunks of concrete and sticks at each other.

At one point, a small contingent of pro-Mubarak forces on horseback and camels rushed into the anti-Mubarak crowds, swinging whips and sticks. Protesters retaliated, dragging some from their mounts, throwing them to the ground and beating them.

Gunfire rang out as some soldiers fired in the air in an attempt to control the crowd, but fighting was unabated.

A front-line formed on a street next to the Egyptian Museum – the famed treasury of pharaonic antiquities and mummies – as protesters and government backers, some of whom brandished machetes, hurled projectiles at each other from either side of several abandoned military trucks.

Scores of wounded were carried to a makeshift clinic at a mosque near the square and on other side streets.

The army troops who have been guarding the square had been keeping the two sides apart earlier in the day, but when the clashes erupted they largely did not intervene. Most took shelter behind or inside the armoured vehicles and tanks stationed at the entrances to Tahrir.

Some anti-Mubarak protesters argued with soldiers, begging them to help. “Why don’t you protect us?” some shouted, while soldiers replied they did not have orders to do so and told people to go home.

Many protesters – who for days have showered the military with love for its neutral stance – now accused the troops of intentionally allowing the attackers into the square.

“Hosni has opened the door for these thugs to attack us,” one man with a loudspeaker shouted to the crowds during the fighting.

“These are paid thugs,” another protester, 52-year-old Emad Nafa, said of the attackers. “The army is neglectful. They let them in.”

Clashes had also earlier occurred in Alexandria immediately after Mr Mubarak’s address.