CAIRO: MUBARAK ERA ENDED! / MILITARY COUNCIL TAKES OVER
CAIRO, FEBRUARY 11, 2011 (REUTERS) Hosni Mubarak [PHOTO) stepped down as Egypt's president on Friday, handing over to the army and ending three decades of autocratic rule, bowing to escalating pressure from the military and protesters demanding that he go.
Vice President Omar Suleiman said a military council would run the affairs of the Arab world's most populous nation. A free and fair presidential election has been promised for September.
A speaker made the announcement in Cairo's Tahrir Square where hundreds of thousands broke down in tears, celebrated and hugged each other chanting: "The people have brought down the regime." Others shouted: "Allahu Akbar (God is great).
The 82-year-old Mubarak's downfall after 18 days of unprecedented mass protests was a momentous victory for people power and was sure to rock autocrats throughout the Arab world and beyond.
Egypt's powerful military gave guarantees earlier on Friday that promised democratic reforms would be carried out but angry protesters intensified an uprising against Mubarak, marching on the presidential palace and the state television tower.
It was an effort by the army to defuse the revolt but, in disregarding protesters' key demand for Mubarak's ouster now, it failed to calm the turmoil that has disrupted the economy and rattled the entire Middle East.
The military's intervention was not enough.
The tumult over Mubarak's refusal to resign had tested the loyalties of the armed forces, which had to choose whether to protect their supreme commander or ditch him.
The sharpening confrontation had raised fear of uncontrolled violence in the most populous Arab nation, a key U.S. ally in an oil-rich region where the chance of chaos spreading to other long stable but repressive states troubles the West.
Washington has called for a prompt democratic transition to restore stability in Egypt, a rare Arab state no longer hostile to Israel, guardian of the Suez Canal linking Europe and Asia and a major force against militant Islam in the region.
The army statement noted that Mubarak had handed powers to govern the country of 80 million people to his deputy the previous day -- perhaps signaling that this should satisfy demonstrators, reformists and opposition figures.
"This is not our demand," one protester said, after relaying the contents of the army statement to the crowd in Cairo's central Tahrir Square. "We have one demand, that Mubarak step down." He has said he will stay until September elections.
The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist opposition group, urged protesters to keep up mass nationwide street protests, describing Mubarak's concessions as a trick to stay in power.
REFORMS TOO LITTLE TOO LATE
Hundreds of thousands of protesters rallied across Egypt, including in the industrial city of Suez, earlier the scene of some of the fiercest violence in the crisis, and the second city of Alexandria, as well as in Tanta and other Nile Delta centers.
The army also said it "confirms the lifting of the state of emergency as soon as the current circumstances end", a pledge that would remove a law imposed after Mubarak became president following Anwar Sadat's assassination in 1981 and that protesters say has long been used to stifle dissent.
It further promised to guarantee free and fair elections and other concessions made by Mubarak to protesters that would have been unthinkable before January 25, when the revolt began.
But none of this was enough for many hundreds of thousands of mistrustful protesters who rallied in cities across the Arab world's most populous and influential country on Friday, fed up with high unemployment, a corrupt elite and police repression.
Since the fall of Tunisia's long-time leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, which triggered protests around the region, Egyptians have been demonstrating in huge numbers against rising prices, poverty, unemployment and their authoritarian regime.
EMERGENCY LAWS
World powers had increasingly pressured Mubarak to organize an orderly transition of power since the protests erupted on January 28 setting off an earthquake that has shaken Egypt sending shock waves around the Middle East.
Mubarak, 82, was thrust into office when Islamists gunned down his predecessor Anwar Sadat at a military parade in 1981.
The burly former air force commander has proved a far more durable leader than anyone imagined at the time, governing under emergency laws protesters say were used to crush dissent.
The president has long promoted peace abroad and more recently backed economic reforms at home led by his cabinet under Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif. But he always kept a tight lid on political opposition.
Mubarak resisted any significant political change even under pressure from the United States, which has poured billions of dollars of military and other aid into Egypt since it became the first Arab state to make peace with Israel, signing a treaty in 1979.
(Cairo newsroom, writing by Peter Millership; editing by Mark Heinrich)
EGYPT'S MUBARAK STEPPED DOWN, MILITARY COUNCIL TAKES OVER
CAIRO (Reuters) - A bitter and, by turns, bloody confrontation gripped central Cairo on Thursday as armed government loyalists fought pro-democracy protesters demanding the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak.
At least six people were dead and 800 wounded after gunmen and stick-wielding Mubarak supporters attacked demonstrators camped out for a tenth day on Tahrir Square to demand the 82-year-old leader immediately end his 30-year rule.
A literal stone's throw from the Egyptian Museum, home to 7,000 years of civilization in the most populous Arab state, angry men skirmished back and forth with rocks, clubs and makeshift shields, as the U.S.-built tanks of Mubarak's Western-funded army made sporadic efforts to separate them.
Away from camera lenses of global media focused on Tahrir Square, a fierce political battle was being fought which has wide implications for Western influence over the Middle East and its oil supplies. European leaders joined the United States in calling on their long-time ally to start handing over power.
His government, newly appointed in a reshuffle that failed to appease protesters, stood by the president's insistence on Tuesday that he will go, but only when his fifth term ends in September. Mubarak continues to portray himself as a bulwark against anarchy or a seizure of power by Islamist radicals.
The opposition won increasingly vocal support from Mubarak's long-time Western backers for a swifter handover of power.
"This process of transition must start now," the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain said in a statement.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon added his voice.
They all echoed the message President Barack Obama said he gave Mubarak in a phone call on Tuesday. U.S. officials also condemned what the called a "concerted campaign to intimidate" journalists, after many were attacked by government loyalists.
Opposition leaders including the liberal figurehead Mohamed ElBaradei and the mass Islamist movement the Muslim Brotherhood rejected a call to talks from Mubarak's new prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq. Only the president's departure and an end to violence would bring them to negotiations, they told Reuters.
TRIAL OF STRENGTH
As he tended to some of those on the square who bore bloody marks from the fighting, doctor Mohamed al-Samadi voiced anger and defiance: "They let armed thugs come and attack us. We refuse to go. We can't let Mubarak stay eight months."
Protesters, who numbered some 10,000 on Tahrir Square on Thursday afternoon, have called major demonstrations for Friday.
It is a trial of strength in which the army has a crucial role as its commanders seek to preserve their institution's influence and wealth in the face of massive popular rejection of the old order, widely regarded as brutal, corrupt and wasteful.
The government, which rejected assumptions by foreign powers that it had orchestrated the attacks on demonstrators, seemed to be counting on winning over the sympathy of Egyptians feeling the pinch of unprecedented economic dislocation.
"I just want to see security back on the streets so that I can go on with my life," said Amira Hassan, 55, a Cairo teacher. "It makes no difference to me whether Mubarak stays or leaves."
Prime Minister Shafiq sought to appease anger at home and abroad by apologizing for the violence and said it would not happen again. But he insisted he did not know who was behind it.
The protesters in Tahrir Square, dominated now by a youthful hard core including secular middle class graduates and mostly poorer Islamist activists from the Muslim Brotherhood, have been inspired by the example of Tunisia, where veteran strongman Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was forced to flee last month.
But many other Egyptians have more respect for Mubarak and seem willing to let him depart more gracefully in due course.
Yet those supporting the calls for constitutional change and free elections saw the violence, unleashed on Wednesday by men they assume to be secret policemen and ruling party loyalists, as a mark of desperation of a president whose army called the opposition demands legitimate and pledged to protect the crowds.
It was a "stupid, desperate move," said Hassan Nafaa, a political scientist and leading opposition figure. "This will not put an end to the protests," he said. "This is not the Tahrir Square revolution, it is a general uprising."
Though less numerous than earlier in the week, there were also demonstrations in Suez and Ismailiya, industrial cities where inflation and unemployment have fueled the sort of dissent that hit Tunisia and which some believe could ripple in a domino effect across other autocratic Arab states.
ARMY ROLE
Many analysts see the army seeking to preserve its own position by engineering a smooth removal of Mubarak, a former air force commander. Its course is unclear. On Monday it gave protesters heart by pledging to let them demonstrate.
But on Wednesday, troops stood by as Mubarak supporters charged Tahrir Square on horseback and camels, lashing out at civilians. After dark, several demonstrators were shot dead.
Only on Thursday morning did soldiers set up a clear buffer zone around the square to separate the factions. But that did not prevent new clashes, as groups pelted each other with rocks.
Soldiers with a tank pushed back Mubarak supporters.
Support for a new order is far from unanimous, however.
Many of the 80 million Egyptians have much to lose from change, whether businesspeople enjoying lucrative concessions in the mixed economy or those employed by the extensive apparatus of the state and its security forces. An even greater number is losing patience with unrest after 10 days of disrupted business.
"My work depends on tourists and there aren't any tourists coming any more," said Ragab Abdel Hamid Mansour, a 48-year-old cruise boat owner on the Nile in Cairo. "I want those protests to end now, and even not tomorrow. I can't live."
Egypt was the first and so far almost the only Arab state to make peace with Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says revolution in Cairo could create an Iranian-style theocracy.
Egyptian Health Minister Ahmed Samih Farid said six people died and 836 were wounded in the Cairo fighting. An estimated 150 people have been killed since last Tuesday. U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay said up to 300 people may have died.
Oil prices have climbed on fears the unrest could spread to affect oil giant Saudi Arabia or interfere with oil supplies from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal.
Brent crude passed $103 a barrel on Thursday. The cost to lenders of insuring loans to the Egyptian government against it defaulting rose slightly but was lower than earlier this week.
On Thursday, tens of thousands of pro-and anti-government protesters squared off in the Yemeni capital Sanaa. Opponents want a change in government and say President Ali Abdullah Saleh's offer on Wednesday to step down in 2013 was not enough.
(Additional reporting by Edmund Blair, Samia Nakhoul, Patrick Werr, Dina Zayed, Marwa Awad, Shaimaa Fayed, Alexander Dziadosz, Yasmine Saleh, Sherine El Madany, Yannis Behrakis, Jonathan Wright, Andrew Hammond, Tom Perry, Alison Williams in Cairo, Myra MacDonald in London and Leigh Thomas in Paris; writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Jon Boyle)
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