Cairo: At lest 13 people including a foreigner have been killed and more than 1500 injured as unprecedented clashes between pro and anti Hosni Mubarak groups continued in Cairo, capital of Egypt, media reports.
Heavy gunfire reverberated in central Cairo before dawn Thursday as supporters and foes of embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak continued to face off at Tahrir Square, where chunks of concretes were employed as weapons in the escalating crisis.
American TV personnel saw wounded people being carried into Tahrir Square, largely held by anti-regime demonstrators, through an entrance that leads to the nearby Egyptian Museum. Several ambulances entered and left the square shortly before 4 a.m. Thursday.
The source of the gunfire was not immediately known.
Voices were heard chanting a prayer after a day of violent street battles in central Cairo.
Sustained automatic weapons fire, including from what sounded like a heavy machine gun, echoed around the square, the epicenter of nine days of protests calling for Mubarak’s ouster.
Anti-government demonstrators hunkered down behind makeshift barricades in the square and outside the nearby national museum against the onslaught, which demonstrators said included plainclothes police officers.
“They’re coming in with weapons. They’re spreading violence,” human rights activist Gigi Ibrahim told the TV on Wednesday. “We’ve had peaceful protests here since Friday and no violence here. Only today were we faced with this really violent reaction.”
The pro-government protesters were not impeded by the army when they entered the square, reporter said early Thursday. Anti-regime protesters are now unhappy with troops, whose commanders had promised Monday not to use force against peaceful demonstrations, for standing by, he said.
Small fires burned in the square early Thursday, some spreading to trees and walls.
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