At Least Eight Dead and Hundreds Hurt in Second Day of Heavy Fighting; Prime Minister Issues Apology; Journalists Rounded Up
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Egyptian army tanks and soldiers cleared away pro-government rioters and deployed between them and protesters seeking the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, moving to halt violence as the prime minister made an unprecedented apology Thursday for the assault by regime backers that turned central Cairo into a battle zone.
Another bout of heavy gunfire and clashes erupted around dusk in the Cairo square at the center of Egypt's anti-government chaos, while new looting and arson spread around the capital. Gangs of thugs supporting Mubarak attacked reporters, foreigners, and human rights workers and the army rounded up foreign journalists.
Gunfire rang out in central Tahrir Square, where Mubarak supporters and opponents have been fighting for more than 24 hours. At least one wounded person was carried out. At least eight people have been killed since the clashes erupted Wednesday afternoon.
CBS News Khaled Wassef reports that another person was killed - and three more injured - by gunshots fired by snipers positioned on buildings surrounding Tahrir Square Thursday. An eyewitness told Al Jazzeer that the slain protester died of a bullet in his head and that the shooting was caught on videotape.
Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq said the attack Wednesday on the anti-Mubarak protesters was a "blatant mistake," acknowledged it was likely organized and promised to investigate who was behind it.
The protesters accuse the regime of organizing the assault, using paid thugs and policemen in civilian clothes, in an attempt to crush their movement. Government supporters charged the protest camp in Tahrir Square Wednesday afternoon, sparking uncontrolled violence that lasted until the next morning, as the two sides battled with rocks, sticks, bottles and firebombs and soldiers largely stood by without intervening.
Vice President Omar Suleiman said Mubarak's son will not seek to succeed his father in elections later this year, in the latest concession to anti-government protesters.
It was widely believed that Mubarak was grooming his son Gamal, 46, to succeed him despite significant public opposition.
Egypt's state news agency also reported that the prosecutor-general has banned travel and frozen the bank accounts of three former ministers of the government that was sacked over the weekend, including the interior minister who was responsible for police.
The prosecutor-general said he ordered the same restrictions against a senior ruling party official until security is restored in the country.
Suleiman vowed to release detained all youth and advocacy workers who had participated in the protests without inciting violence. But Suleiman also vowed punishment for those currently fighting - and for those behind the pro-Mubarak gangs that sparked violence Wednesday.
"What happened in Tahrir Square yesterday was a conspiracy and we must punish those who cooked this conspiracy," Suleiman said, in a translation provided by Wassef. "Investigations will show who pushed those people to go to Tahrir Square, who incited them. … Whoever did that wasted all the efforts exerted by President Mubarak over the past few days."
Suleiman said the protesters have legitimate and acceptable demands and that the government was happy to listen - but alluded to foreign interests infiltrating protest groups as well.
The vice president then spoke about a process of constitutional changes - revisions, but not a complete overhaul - that would need to take place before new elections in September.
The military fanned out early Thursday to separate the two sides and allowed thousands more protesters to enter their camp in the square. Soldiers then stepped aside as the anti-government side surged ahead in the afternoon in resumed clashes.
Automatic weapons fire pounded the anti-government protest camp in Cairo's Tahrir Square before dawn on Thursday in a dramatic escalation of what appeared to be a well-orchestrated series of assaults on the demonstrators.
The nation's health minister, speaking to state television early Thursday morning, said 836 people had been injured in the melee, though other reports put those numbers higher.
CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann reports that Mubarak's government was almost certainly responsible for deploying the waves of attackers to lay siege to the camp in Tahrir Square. They were well-organized. And on some of them, protestors later found government or police ID's.
"A day after asserting he would not run again for office, Egypt's president re-asserted his authority - tried to crush this popular dissent - reminding protestors why they had taken to the streets in the first place," notes Strassmann.
At the same time, Mubarak supporters carried out a string of attacks on journalists around the square. One Greek print journalist was stabbed in the leg with a screwdriver, and a photographer was punched, his equipment smashed. Arab TV network Al-Jazeera reported two correspondents attacked. The army started rounding up journalists, possibly for their own protection.
Many Western journalists were attacked by apparent Mubarak supporters on Wednesday, with both Strassmann and CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric and their crews meeting hostility for the first time since the Cairo protests erupted more than a week ago.
Mob gangs are likely involved in an organized campaign targeting the foreign reporters, Wassef reports. A U.S. intelligence source told CBS News correspondent Lara Logan that the Egyptian secret police may be behind the organized attacks on media.
The U.S. State Department condemned what it called a "concerted campaign to intimidate" foreign journalists in Egypt. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday that violence against journalists was part of a series of deliberate attacks and called on the Egyptian military to provide protection for reporters.
An Associated Press reporter saw eight foreign journalists detained by the military near the prime minister's office, not far from Tahrir Square
The Arabic-language satellite channel Al-Arabiya pleaded on an urgent news scroll for the army to protect its offices and journalists.
The attacks appeared to reflect a pro-government view that many media outlets are sympathetic to protesters who want Mubarak to quit now rather than complete his term.
The Qatar-based pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera said on a news scroll that two of its correspondents had been attacked by "thugs." It didn't say when the attack took place, or how badly they were hurt.
Al-Jazeera kept its camera crews away from the square and instead relied on reporters of Arab descent who had flip cameras and tried to do their work by blending in with the crowd, said Al Anstey, the network's managing director.
"It's a very, very challenging situation," Anstey said. "But it's history in the making."
Earlier Wednesday, Couric Tweeted that Mubarak supporters near Tahrir Square were "very hostile," preventing a CBS crew from shooting video and punching a photographer.
(Watch protesters crowd around Couric and her camera crew at left)
Strassmann reports that he and a photographer were attacked at a checkpoint near Tahrir Square.
Shafiq's highly unusual apology and the army intervention suggested at least some in the regime want to step back from Wednesday's dangerous turn — the first outbreak of street violence between the two sides in what is now 10 days of unprecedented protests demanding Mubarak, unquestioned leader for nearly 30 years, quit power.
The notion that the state may have coordinated violence against protesters, whose vigil in Tahrir Square had been peaceful for days, raised international outrage, including a sharp rebuke from Washington, which has considered Egypt its most important Arab ally for decades, and sends it $1.5 billion a year in aid.
"If any of the violence is instigated by the government, it should stop immediately," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.
Tanks cleared a highway overpass Thursday from which Mubarak supporters had hurled rocks and firebombs onto the protesters. On the streets below, several hundred soldiers carrying rifles lined up between the two sides, pushing the pro-government fighters back and blocking the main battle lines in front of the famed Egyptian Museum and at other entrances to the square.
A sense of victory ran through the protesters, even as they organized their ranks in the streets in case of a renewed assault. "Thank God, we managed to protect the whole area," said Abdul-Rahman, a taxi driver who was among thousands who hunkered down in the square through the night.
Mubarak backers seethed with anger at a protest movement that state TV and media have depicted as causing the chaos and paralyzing businesses and livelihoods. "You in Tahrir are the reason we can't live a normal life," one screamed as he threw stones in a side street.
Shafiq's promise to investigate who organized the attack came only hours after the Interior Ministry issued a denial that any of its police were involved.
"I offer my apology for everything that happened yesterday because it's neither logical nor rational," Shafiq told state TV. "Everything that happened yesterday will be investigated so everyone knows who was behind it."
The anti-Mubarak movement has vowed to intensify protests to force the president out by Friday. In a speech Tuesday night, Mubarak refused to step down immediately, saying he would serve out the remaining seven months of his term — a halfway concession rejected by the protesters.
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