Egyptians celebrate Mubarak's resignation

One Egyptian kissed the ground. Another rolled in ecstasy in the grass outside a presidential palace. People wept, jumped, screamed and hugged each other with a shared joy they had never known. Cairo erupted in a cacophony of celebration: fireworks and car horns and gunshots in the air.

President Hosni Mubarak resigned and handed power to the military today, and Egypt held its biggest party in decades.

“The people have toppled the regime,” chanted protesters, whose 18 days of swelling protests tipped Egypt into a crisis that the autocratic government could not undo.

“This is the happiest day in my generation,” said Ali al-Tayab, a demonstrator who paid tribute to those who died in clashes with police and Mubarak supporters. “To the martyrs, this is your day.”

At a presidential palace in Cairo, where demonstrators had gathered in the thousands, people flashed the V-for-victory sign and shouted, “Be happy, Egyptians, today is a feast” and “He stepped down.”

Many prayed and declared: “God is great.”

Crowds packed Tahrir Square, the scene of massive protests against Mubarak that began on January 25.

“Egypt is free,” shouted Mahmoud Elhetta, a protest organiser. “We are a great people and we did something great. This is the expected end for every dictator.”

Some, though, warned that Egypt still faces many challenges, including what they hope will be a peaceful transition to free elections and a full democracy.

“We still have a long way to go to fix things,” said protester Hala Abdel-Razek. “What has been ruined by the Mubarak regime has to be fixed and we have to start rebuilding with the help of the young people.”

A speaker on a podium said demonstrators would not immediately abandon the square because there was “more to do”.

On Thursday, an exultant crowd gathered on the square for what they expected would be the president’s televised announcement that he would resign. Instead they were shocked to hear him say he would transfer power to his deputy, but keep the title. Angry and disappointed, thousands of protesters fanned out across the city today.

Vice President Omar Suleiman then announced that his boss had resigned.

In Tahrir Square, protesters heard the announcement on mobile telephone radios that they passed back and forth. They broke into cheers, then lifted soldiers stationed there on to their shoulders. Some formed a conga line, winding through the packed area.

“Goodbye, Goodbye,” demonstrators shouted. They beat drums and waved national flags.

“Finally, we are free,” said 60-year-old Safwan Abou Stat. “From now on, anyone who is going to rule will know that these people are great.”

In some neighbourhoods, women on balconies ululated with the joyous tongue-trilling used to mark weddings and births. Others sang the national anthem.

State television, a bastion of support for the Mubarak regime, began reporting the celebrations across the nation. It was a big change for state television, which had spent most of the last days of the uprising trying to portray the demonstrators as a minority.

Mubarak’s departure, said the station’s reporter outside his Cairo palace, “showed that the Egyptians are capable of making their own history. They are able to move the water that has been still for 30 years.

“At this moment, Egyptians are breathing freedom,” said the TV presenter.

Neighbouring Israel watched the crisis with unease, worried that their 1979 peace treaty could be in danger. It quickly demanded that post-Mubarak Egypt continue to adhere to it.

Any break seems unlikely in the near term – the military leadership supports the treaty. While anti-Israeli feeling is strong among Egyptians and future ties may be strained, few call for outright abrogating a treaty that has kept peace after three wars in the past half-century.

From the oil-rich Gulf states in the east to Morocco in the west, regimes both pro- and anti-US could not help but worry they could see a similar upheaval. Several of the region’s authoritarian rulers have made pre-emptive gestures of democratic reform to avert their own protest movements.

Mubarak himself flew to his isolated palace in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, 250 miles from the turmoil in Cairo.

The question now turned to what happens next after effectively a military coup, albeit one prompted by overwhelming popular pressure. Protesters had overtly pleaded for the army to oust Mubarak.

The country is now ruled by the Armed Forces Supreme Council, the military’s top body consisting of its highest ranking generals and headed by defence minister Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi.

After Mubarak’s resignation, a military spokesman appeared on state TV and promised the army would not act as a substitute for a government based on the “legitimacy of the people”.

He said the military was preparing the next steps needed “to achieve the ambitions of our great nation” and would announce them soon. He praised Mubarak for his contributions to the country, then expressed the military’s condolences for protesters killed in the unrest, standing at attention to give a salute.

For the moment, concerns over the next step were overwhelmed by the wave of joy and disbelief.