New Clashes Rock Cairo after Nine Killed

Violence raged in the administrative heart of Egypt's capital on Saturday as troops and police deployed in force after clashes with protesters against continued military rule left nine people dead.

Smoke billowed over Tahrir Square, the iconic focus of the protest movement that overthrew veteran president Hosni Mubarak in February, after two nearby government offices caught fire, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

Demonstrators pelted security forces with rocks and petrol bombs as they fought running battles in the streets around the square and an adjacent bridge across the River Nile.

Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzuri raised tensions by accusing the protesters of being counter-revolutionaries and denying security forces had opened fire as they broke up a sit-in against his nomination last month outside the nearby cabinet office.

Troops and police moved to retake control of the area around the office early on Saturday, erecting razor-wire barriers.

But after several hours of calm, new clashes erupted, overshadowing the count in the second phase of the first general election since Mubarak's ouster.

Abul Ela Madi, the vice president of a civilian advisory council to the military set up in November after days of anti-army protests, said 11 of the council's 30 members had resigned in protest by Saturday.

"Eleven people, including me, have resigned," said Madi, who heads the moderate Islamist Wasat party.

"We made recommendations yesterday (Friday) but today we were surprised that not only were they not implemented, but there were further casualties," he said.

By the afternoon, soldiers withdrew to the cabinet offices and began constructing a wall of concrete blocks, witnesses said.

Following the resignations, the ruling military council expressed its "regret for the events that took place (on Saturday)," in a statement published by the official MENA news agency.

It added it was implementing the advisory council's recommendations to stop the clashes by building a wall, and it would compensate the families of the dead and treat the wounded.

The ruling military council had earlier said it had come under attack at dawn and its soldiers were shot at, causing injuries, forcing the military "to stop those outlaws," in a statement published by MENA.

Friday's fighting, which raged from dawn well into the night, was the bloodiest since five days of protests in November killed more than 40 people just ahead of the first round of the phased parliamentary election.

Health Minister Fuad al-Nawawi said nine people were killed in the latest violence and 361 wounded, MENA reported on Saturday.

One of the dead was Emad Effat, a senior cleric in the government-run Dar al-Ifta, the official interpreter of Islamic law, the institution said in a statement published by MENA.

Dar al-Ifta "considers him a martyr, with God the exalted," it said.

Footage posted on YouTube showed the bloodied cleric lying on the street before protesters carried him away.

"The people demand the execution of the field marshal," the demonstrators chanted in reference to Hussein Tantawi, head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which took over following Mubarak's ouster.

Tantawi, in a gesture apparently aimed at mollifying the protesters, ordered the treatment of all civilians wounded at military hospitals, which are usually better equipped than civilian counterparts, state television reported.

Pictures of a military policeman grabbing a woman by her hair and of another looming over a sobbing elderly lady with his truncheon quickly circulated on social networking site Twitter, enraging activists.

But in a news conference on Saturday, Ganzuri accused the protesters of being counter-revolutionaries and denied that security forces had opened fire.

"Those who are in Tahrir Square are not the youth of the revolution," Ganzuri said.

"This is not a revolution, but a counter-revolution," added the man who first served as premier under Mubarak from 1996 to 1999.

He said 18 people had been wounded by gunfire on Friday and, without elaborating, blamed "infiltrators" who he said "do not want the best for Egypt."

It was the SCAF's nomination of Ganzuri as premier on November 27 that prompted the protesters to launch their sit-in outside the cabinet offices. They continued it after his interim government was sworn in on December 7.

The demonstrators want the military to hand power immediately to a civilian administration with full powers.

France on Saturday denounced the use of force against protesters.

"France is worried about the violent incidents that have taken place on Tahrir Square in Cairo," a foreign ministry statement said, adding that Paris "denounces the violence and excessive use of force against protesters."

The military has said it will step down only once a president has been elected by the end of June in the final stage of a protracted transition.

The count continued on Saturday in the second stage of elections for the lower house of parliament. A third stage next month will be followed by a similar three-phase election to the upper house before the presidential vote.

As in the first phase last month, Islamist parties had a commanding lead over the liberals in the second stage of the election, according to initial results cited by state media.

The Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party condemned "the assault on protesters and the attempt to disperse them."

Leading secularist Mohamed ElBaradei, the former U.N. nuclear watchdog chief turned dissident and presidential candidate, condemned what he called a "savage" attempt to disperse the sit-in.