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Four army tanks have moved into positions, creating a buffer zone between the anti-government and the pro-government protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square hours after automatic weapons fire pounded the demonstrators before dawn on Thursday.
One tank moved onto a bridge overlooking the square and pushed out young men who had been throwing stones at the anti-government protesters. Four other tanks took up a position between the pro-Mubarak forces and the largest group of anti-government demonstrations at the north end of the square near the Egyptian Museum.
Also on Thursday morning, Egyptian state television reported that Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik offered to negotiate with opposition parties. Ppposition leaderMohammed ElBaradei has rejected the offer, saying that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak must step down first.
At least six anti-government demonstrators were killed incrowds trying to hold the site after an assault by supporters of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, according to AFP and protest organizers.
Sustained bursts of automatic weapons fire and powerful single shots rattled into the square starting at around 4 a.m., and was continuing more than an hour later.
Protest organizer Mustafa el-Naggar said he saw the bodies of three dead protesters being carried toward an ambulance. He said the gunfire came from at least three locations off in the distance and that the Egyptian military, which has ringed the square with tank squads for days to try to keep some order, did not intervene.
Footage from AP Television News showed two bodies being dragged from the scene. The health minister did not answer a phone call seeking confirmation of the deaths.
Throughout Wednesday, Mubarak supporters charged into the square on horses and camels brandishing whips while others rained firebombs from rooftops in what appeared to be an orchestrated assault against protesters trying to topple Egypt’s leader of 30 years. Three people died in that earlier violence and 600 were injured.
The protesters accused Mubarak’s regime of unleashing a force of paid thugs and plainclothes police to crush their unprecedented nine-day-old movement, a day after the 82-year-old president refused to step down. They showed off police ID badges they said were wrested from their attackers. Some government workers said their employers ordered them into the streets
Mustafa el-Fiqqi, a top official from the ruling National Democratic Party, told The Associated Press that businessmen connected to the ruling party were responsible for what happened.
The notion that the state may have coordinated violence against protesters, who had kept a peaceful vigil in Tahrir Square for five days, prompted a sharp rebuke from the Obama administration.
"If any of the violence is instigated by the government, it should stop immediately," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.
The clashes marked a dangerous new phase in Egypt’s upheaval: the first significant violence between government supporters and opponents. The crisis took a sharp turn for the worse almost immediately after Mubarak rejected the calls for him to give up power or leave the country, stubbornly proclaiming he would die on Egyptian soil.