Egyptian troops let protests proceed as Mubarak names vice president

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Mass protests clog Egypt, Pres. names deputy

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak named a vice president Saturday for the first time since coming to power nearly 30 years ago, a clear step toward setting up a successor in the midst of the biggest anti-government protests of his regime. (Jan. 29)

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Mohamed ElBaradei, a political reform advocate and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who returned to Egypt from abroad to participate, was soaked with a water cannon and later placed under house arrest, the Associated Press reported. ElBaradei, the former chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has said he wants to lead Egypt in a peaceful transition to democratic government.

The protests were launched after Friday midday prayers. They started small, with police moving in immediately to try to suppress them. But the gatherings soon swelled, and the police tactics escalated. Throughout the afternoon and evening, security services fired hundreds of tear gas shells, shot unarmed protesters and beat them with clubs. Despite those efforts, the protesters continued to surge toward downtown Cairo and, after dark, began setting fire to police vehicles and government buildings, as well as the headquarters of the National Democratic Party.

Until then, the protesters had largely refrained from initiating violence, choosing instead to chant slogans and wave the Egyptian flag. When tear gas canisters sailed toward them, protesters swooped in and tried to either throw them back or to cast them into the waters of the Nile.

Protesters vowed to continue their demonstrations until Mubarak leaves office. "This is no longer a time of fear. It's a time of change," said Mohammed Nabil, a 35-year-old doctor who, like many, said he was participating in his first protest. "We want Mubarak to leave and end 30 years of oppression."

Despite calls by Egypt's main opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood, for members to join the movement, this week's protests have been decidedly secular. Demonstrators, most of whom appear to be members of the nation's middle class, said their campaign has little to do with religion.

"We need a just government. It doesn't matter whether it's Islamic or secular. The issue is justice," said Mustafa Reda, a 22-year-old whose eyes were bloodshot and throat raw from choking on tear gas.

Reda said he took to the streets only after friends were killed earlier in the week in demonstrations in the northeastern city of Suez. Protests there, in Alexandria and in cities across Egypt continued Friday.

It was unclear how many protesters were killed or injured during Friday's mayhem. At one point in Cairo, an armored personnel carrier steered directly into a swarm of demonstrators. A police officer firing from a hatch in the roof shot at least two men. When fellow protesters tried to drive the wounded men away, police stopped their vehicle, forced all able-bodied occupants out and relentlessly beat them in the middle of the street.

Throughout the afternoon, protesters and police waged pitched battles from either side of three majestic bridges that span the Nile. Police would send tear gas canisters soaring from one end of the bridge to the other and temporarily force the protesters to flee. But each time, the protesters surged back, and just after dusk, they forced the police into a full retreat across one of the spans.

In addition to calling for the ouster of the president, protesters also demanded that the U.S. government support their cause. Osama el-Ghazi Harb, a prominent Egyptian writer, held aloft an empty teargas canister that only minutes earlier had been fired at him and several hundred other protesters.

"I'm very sorry to say that it was made in the U.S.A.," Harb said. "The U.S. must condemn this use of force and, at the proper moment, tell Mubarak to get out."

Many journalists who attempted to report on the demonstrations were attacked by plainclothes security officers who smashed cameras and bloodied the face of at least one BBC reporter. The journalist later went on the air to report the assault.

Many of those injured in the protests said they would not go to hospitals for fear of being arrested, and instead went home or simply stayed in the street.

The ranks of the protesters included a significant number of government employees, who used their day off from work to call for their president to go. "All the Egyptian people are oppressed, and their time has come. Enough is enough," said a man who identified himself as a diplomat with the nation's Foreign Ministry but would give only his first name, Ahmed. "I know Egyptians, and they will not stop until Mubarak is gone."

Special correspondents Sherine Bayoumi in Cairo and Joel Greenberg in Jerusalem and correspondent Sudarsan Raghavan in Sanaa, Yemen, contributed to this report.