Cairo -Thousands rallied in Egypt against the country's ruling military council on Friday, two days after a flare-up of street violence left at least nine dead and fueled a wave of Islamist-led opposition to the generals ahead of presidential elections.
Protesters plastered downtown Cairo's Tahrir square with banners reading, "Down with military rule," and some demonstrators said they intended to stage a march to an ongoing sit-in near the Defense Ministry in the northern neighborhood of Abbasiyah - a likely flashpoint for new clashes.
Campaigning for the May 23-24 vote was interrupted on Wednesday when still-unidentified assailants attacked the Abbasiyah sit-in, comprised mostly of backers of a disqualified ultraconservative candidate.
Demonstrators blamed the generals, who took control of the country after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak last year, of being behind the violence.
The day after the clashes, members of the military council repeated their pledge to hand power once one of the 13 presidential candidates wins, an apparent attempt to assuage concerns that they would use the violence as an excuse to stay on.
But they also warned demonstrators against holding Friday protests near the ministry headquarters and said that soldiers have the right to defend their positions, sparking fears of renewal of violence.
Demonstrations have previously been attacked, particularly those near the Defense Ministry. Protesters blame plainclothes police, soldiers, Mubarak supporters, or petty criminals on the payroll of the police.
But the Abbasiyah protests appear also to have drawn in local residents, angry at the protests that have shut down their neighborhood. Local complained that the Islamists sealed off streets during the days of sit-ins that preceded Wednesday's violence.
The incident highlighted what appears to be an emerging street-fighting force of more confrontative Islamists. Until now, most Islamist demonstrators have been affiliated with larger movements that steered them away from rallies likely to lead to clashes.
After Wednesday's protests, several residents of the area claimed to have seen bearded men among the protesters armed with automatic weapons that they fired into the air. If anti-government demonstrators begin to openly brandish firearms at a rally, this would be a dangerous new development in Egypt's post-Mubarak unrest.
The group near Abbasiya is predominantly supporters of hardline Islamist Hazem Abu Ismail, a lawyer-turned-preacher, who was disqualified from the race because his mother allegedly held American citizenship, making him ineligible under election laws.
Ismail has encouraged his followers to take the streets. "We are in the face of a plot to abort the revolution," Gamal Saber, Abu Ismail's spokesman told the Al-Jazeera network on Friday.
But Abu Ismail's supporters are not part of a disciplined movement like the Muslim Brotherhood, and he says that he has no control over the actions of protesters who are not his supporters.
Members of non-Islamists, including members of the left- and liberal-leaning youth groups which led the 2011 uprising against Mubarak, have joined the Islamists in solidarity against the generals. However, others have accused Abu Ismail of dragging the whole nation to a disastrous confrontation with the military generals over his disqualification. - Sapa-AP
IOL News