Cairo from the ground.

[Scrat]

A very interesting article from a reporter on the ground in Egypt. These people were in the thick of it. I wonder just how much this practice of paying people in counter protests ect. They said the internal police and others disappeared, I don't think so. Just wanted to share this. Also apparently the anti Mubarak crowd handed these people their arses in the end but they're still out there. Kudos to the Egyptian army for their trigger discipline too. Highly professional.

Report from Egyptian 'no-man's land'

Cairo's central Tahrir Square

It started just after midday with a comment from a man in his 40s striding beside our taxi along Cairo's traffic-clogged raised highway. "Mubarak - yes! Mubarak - yes!"

After nine days of fierce protest against the government we thought it was a black joke. But by the next morning after the unleashing of violent pro-Mubarak crowds, central Cairo was in a state of near-anarchy with over a thousand injured and at least a handful killed.

Yesterday as we edged closer by foot to the museum and the northern edge of Cairo's Tahrir square, the man's phrase was echoed by dozens more congregating on the intersection of Ramses. Men and some women brandished brand new Egyptian flags and pieces of paper printed with messages praising the President who had, just 10 hours before, announced his intention not to stand for re-election in September.

This new pro-Mubarak crowd surged along the top side of the square. Stocky men on scooters buzzed around the streets shouting. I turned to one marcher who carried a A3 glossy of the incumbent. "You like Mubarak?" I asked neutrally. "Yes! Yes!" he bellowed back.

We took the backstreets of downtown, circled a few dozen strong pro-Mubarak supporters on an intersection. Already we heard shouts ahead and saw a frontline facing off against the pro-democracy protesters who'd been holding Midan Tahrir for nearly a week. Shouts rang out. Men ran back and forth, regrouped next to Talaat Harb street's shuttered shops and travel agencies. Some held iron rods, others lengths of wood.

It was becoming clear - Egyptian was fighting Egyptian and this stretch of road was a sort of no-man's land between the several-thousands strong anti-government presence in the square and this mysterious, newly-formed crowd. Some had infiltrated the square despite the army's presence and civilian checkpoints. Others from the square were trying to escape, meld with the other side and head to safety.

A young man in glasses ran up to us, "They are thugs, all these men are thugs and they've been paid by the government to fight us," he shouted. A mob gathered around, shouting denials and bundled him off. We took cover at a smaller intersection. "This country is at war now," said a man in late middle-age. The men running past were taking money to support the government, he repeated.

On Muhammed Bassiyuny street a mob was gathering rocks, hunkering at an intersection, then sprinting forward and hurling them towards Tahrir. "No photos! No photos!" they shouted at a camera-lugging friend who ran rings around them.

A lanky man in his 30s ran up to us. "We need Mubarak," he pleaded, over and over, tears in his eyes. "Who will look after my mother, my wife? How do I go to work? We need money. We want peace." This mantra was, I heard later, being repeated all over the capital to the media. He offered his mobile number for further comments, a one man public relations outfit.

Already we doubted the motives of much of the crowd. Many looked uncomfortably familiar from the previous week, too much like the plain clothes security who had brutally attacked protesters. Dozens of flags were being distributed, flyers and posters were mass-produced.

The same few talking points were being recycled. They said the anti-Mubarak crowds were trying to destroy the country, ruining property and the economy and attacking passer-by and foreigners. It's true, many Egyptians are now ready to accept an end to protests following government concessions. The fear of instability is real. But the description of the anti-Mubarak crowds had little basis in reality. They were describing the very same people who had tried peaceful protest, who welcomed cameramen, not scurried away from them.

The backstreets seemed to be a gathering point, where these shadowy men grabbed their improvised weapons. They smashed paving slabs into smaller rocks, climbed scaffolding to remove metal bars. It was here they also received their orders. I saw some senior figures use the gestures of traffic police to redistribute the hundred or so men on the two fronts that were forming. I heard high-pitched whistles used to signal advance and retreat.

A group, suspicious at our presence, tried to lead us down a sidestreet and we refused. Later in the day we heard of attacks on journalists, cameras being snatched and smashed. Unlike the protesters in the square, these thugs wanted no witnesses.

We got a vantage point over several entrances to Tahrir square. Already we could hear the thumps and shouts - later we read of savage attacks by thugs on horse and camelback. Mobs hauled bloodied figures in front of them, captured protesters from the square. They beat some more, baying. Others were hauled off out of sight. We caught the odd sight of burka-clad figures behind pro-Mubarak lines. Later we heard they were disguises for men to get past security into the square.

Parts of Midan Tahrir were already being taken - retaken, rather, for the violent battles were instigated but what were almost certainly government security in another form. The first gunshots rang out, a warning from the military who were standing by and powerless, or perhaps unwilling, to intervene. Military choppers thumped overhead, constantly circling. A few hundred at most on this side, the pro-Mubarak fighters were being pushed back to the intersections, seemingly unable to cope with opposing numbers. A half-km away on that raised highway, the horizon was darkened by what looked like a large, immobile crowd.

Things stepped up as evening fell. We saw molotovs being lobbed, further rains of rocks, saw fires up towards the Egyptian museum. Barricades were being set up and hammered upon in a Zulu-esque show of psychological warfare. We heard bursts of fire from automatic weaponry a few blocks away.

Stories were coming in of bloody losses from the square. Attackers had climbed surrounding buildings and were hurling rocks and petrol bombs. On our street, an armoured personnel carrier thundered past, smashing a roadside tree into a contorted angle. Then what sounded like gunfire at street level and we hunkered down.

Here, like in many places across Cairo, neighbourhood committees were standing guard of buildings, shops and parked cars. If anyone advanced too quickly on their turf, a shout would come and a figure wielding a stick or iron rod would threaten brutal reprisal. In this way, a sliver of peace was kept.

The battle around the Museum was still raging. Gradually the anti-Mubarak group forced their attackers back. More shots rang out. By 11pm, things were quieter. Reports came in that most of the square had been reconquered by the anti-Mubarak crowd with fighting now on the edges. A metro station was being used as a holding cell for captured pro-Mubarak fighters. Police and security ID was found and others admitted they had been paid. Some said they had been bussed in from outlying towns.

Figures were coming in, some 1,500 injured and at least three dead. We got some uneasy sleep, broken at 5am by further gunfire. Two more had been killed.

The message seems clear. After Mubarak's climbdown last night, there will be bloody payback for those who continue to oppose him.

[Accountable]

Scrat;1352773 wrote: Kudos to the Egyptian army for their trigger discipline too. Highly professional.That's what has impressed me most.

[gmc]

Be interesting to see what they will do if ordered to open fire.

[Scrat]

I heard they were already but the order was essentially refused by the general in charge. I guess the head of the security service in Cairo is nowhere to be found, I think he may be afraid he will have to answer questions about those people his "policemen" put in the back of trucks and drove out into the desert.

[Accountable]

Scrat;1352815 wrote: [QUOTE=gmc;1352793]Be interesting to see what they will do if ordered to open fire.I heard they were already but the order was essentially refused by the general in charge. [/QUOTE]I heard the same. A curfew was set with lots of threats, but nothing happened when everybody stayed in the streets.

[Scrat]

Gas line exploded in Egypts Sinai.



YouTube - Sinai pipeline blows up