Curfew Set as Regime Defies U.S. Calls

CHARLES LEVINSON MATT BRADLEY

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A protestor gestures to riot policeman in front of the l-Istiqama Mosque in Giza, Cairo. Thousands of police are on the streets of the capital and hundreds of arrests have been made in an attempt to quell anti-government demonstrations.

CAIRO—President Hosni Mubarak declared a curfew in riot-wracked Egyptian cities and army tanks began to enter streets to beat back protesters that took to the streets en masse Friday, as the Egyptian leader essentially defied U.S.'s recent urging to embrace reform.

The country's ruling regime faced its biggest challenge Friday. At scattered points across Egypt's sprawling capital, police used tear gas, bullets and batons while men in plainclothes wielded clubs against demonstrators. It was the fourth straight day of protests in Cairo and other cities across Egypt by demonstrators seeking an end to Mr. Mubarak's three-decade rule.

Friday's protests appeared to be the largest yet in Egypt, a country that has become a focal point for unrest that has spread to countries including Algeria, Yemen and Jordan after people across the region watched Tunisian demonstrators force the ouster of the country's president two weeks earlier.

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Egypt's military has been deployed on the streets of Cairo for the first time in the crisis, according to media reports. President Mubarak first declared a curfew in greater Cairo, Alexandria and Suez but later broadened it to cover the entire country, from 4 p.m. to 5 a.m. until further notice, state television reported.

In defiance of the curfew, thousands of protesters on Friday evening filled Cairo's Tahrir Square, the center of massive demonstrations Tuesday. Earier, police had withdrawn from the square, smashing car windows as they retreated. It wasn't clear if they were regrouping or making way for the military.

Also late Friday, thousands of protesters sought to storm the state TV building and the Foreign Ministry, the Associated Press reported. Nearby, some protesters were looted television sets and electric fans from the burning headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Party after the entire complex was set ablaze.

Egyptian security officials said Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei had been placed under house arrest, according to the AP. Mr. ElBaradei, who has sought to rally around him disparate opposition groups that fall outside the country's established opposition, returned to the country Thursday night after a month abroad, declaring he was prepared to lead the opposition to a regime change.

Internet, cell phone and other communications were spotty around the country, as the government appeared to have unplugged most means of communication—including social-networking sites Facebook and Twitter—that activists had been using to coordinate action across the country.

U.K.-headquartered Vodafone Group PLC said in a statement that all mobile operators in Egypt had been instructed to suspend services in parts of Egypt. Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao said in comments to a Davos session on mobile devices that "Egyptian authorities" had asked the company to "turn down the network totally," a request he said appeared legitimate under Egyptian law.

With events rapidly in Egypt, the Obama administration sharply shifted its tone Friday, expressing "deep concern" over unfolding actions after Mr. Mubarak shut down Internet and cell services in the world's largest Arab country. "Fundamental rights must be respected, violence avoided and open communications allowed," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said on Twitter.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. "wants to partner with the Egyptian people."

"People in the Middle East, like people everywhere, are seeking a chance to contribute and have a role in decisions that will shape their lives," Mrs. Clinton said at the State Department on Friday. "Leaders need to respond...The Egyptian government needs to understand that violence will not make these grievances go away."

Friday's demonstrations were planned by a loose grouping of opposition parties that had planned rallies on Tuesday, largely by spreading word by social-networking sites to Internet-savvy young Egyptians who turned out in the tens of thousands, Egypt's largest demonstration in decades. These people were joined more broadly on Friday, observers said, by a broader slice of Egyptian society.

The country's Muslim Brotherhood, an officially banned but influential opposition force, said on its website Friday that it would call its full numbers onto the streets. That was a marked change from Tuesday, when the Brotherhood endorsed the goal of the protests but refrained from urging its members to join in.

Egyptians Protest Again

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With dusk descending on Cairo, protesters broke through a cordon of riot police guarding one of the key bridges in the center of the city and attempted to surge across the Nile River and reach Tahrir Square. The move is typical of the back-and-forth battles between riot police and demonstrators seeking to overcome a hostile security presence and unite in central locations across the sprawling city.

Police beat a hasty retreat after losing a position on the bridge that they had been holding all day in attempts stop people crossing the Nile to reach the central square where luxury hotels and national landmarks are located. But the troops quickly regrouped in defensive positions and demonstrators have not yet reached the square.

Tahrir Square has been a focal point for previous protests.

On Friday, amid the pop and hiss of teargas canisters, some demonstrators stopped and kneeled down to pray on the street. Others threw teargas canisters into office buildings in central Cairo, igniting a small fire in the Arab League headquarters. White smoke was seen billowing from the building.

Violent protest broke out wherever demonstrators gathered with riot police firing tear gas to prevent large groups from forming. From downtown Cairo's Semiramis Intercon hotel, smoke could be seen rising from at least three points across the city. A car burned in downtown's Ramses Square where police were subduing a large group of young men with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Smoke could be seen rising from the square, which borders the dense lower-class neighborhood of Masbiro.

The protests were planned to begin following noon prayers on Friday, a Muslim day of rest.

As the day began, protesters convened as planned at mosques around the city for Friday noon prayers. At Cairo's eminent Al Azhar mosque, the seat of Sunni Islamic learning and one of the oldest institutions of religious teaching in the world, regular noon prayers were truncated, running 20 minutes instead of the usual hour and a half. Security officials said they were instructed not to allow anyone to loiter outside the mosque following prayers.

"We will use force to disperse the people. We are not going to just let them walk the street," said one plainclothes officer. As worshippers filed out of the service under heavy security, a chant of "Allahu Akbar" or "God is great" rose from the exiting crowd. Once the mass of about 500 left the mosque, the chant changed to "the people want the regime to go," and "punish those people," a reference to the government.

"I couldn't be there on Tuesday, but I was inspired," said Mohammed Ahmed, 40, who was jogging along with protesters after he left the services at Al Azhar mosque. Mr. Ahmed said he had been impressed by the events in Tunisia, where a month of protests ended in the ouster of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. "Why can't that happen here," said Mr. Ahmed.

The crowd of mostly men, many wearing the long beards that signal adherence to the ultra-conservative Salafi Islam, seemed united on the immediate goal of ousting Mr. Mubarak.

"I am not Muslim Brotherhood, I am not Salafi, I am not Christian, I am Egyptian," said one bearded man, when asked if his loyalties lay with the Islamist opponents of Egypt's government.

As demonstrators began marching towards the center of town, they were blocked by police in riot gear, who descended on the crowd with truncheons. As some protesters fled, others screamed for them to hold ground.

"Were not leaving," some yelled. "This is a legal protest, this is a peaceful protest."

Shop owners in the working class neighborhood of Attaba, normally the scene of a massive weekly market on Friday, shuttered their shops. When some among the assembled demonstrators began throwing rocks, the rest of the crowd quickly admonished them.

Chants of "peace" could be heard in many gatherings around the city. Crowds addressed the assembled policemen: "Hey helmets, we're your brothers, not terrorists," the crowd chanted rhythmically.

In many of the scuffles, protesters outnumbered police by as many as four to one. When police retreated, protesters cheered.

In one dramatic scene, a woman wearing an Islamic veil that covered her full face broke with a crowd of mostly young men and ran toward the police. As the crowd cheered, she picked up a live teargas canister and lobbed it back at police officers.

For hours on Friday, though, protesters seemed lost in downtown Cairo, stymied by police blockades assembled to keep them from reaching Tahrir Square.

Mr. ElBaradei joined protesters Friday after noon prayers, the AP reported. Police fired water cannons at him and his supporters. They used batons to beat some of Mr. ElBaradei's supporters, who surrounded him to protect him.

A soaking wet ElBaradei was trapped inside a mosque while hundreds of riot police laid siege to it, firing tear gas in the streets around so no one could leave. Tear-gas canisters set several cars ablaze outside the mosque and several people fainted and suffered burns.

When he returned home police stationed outside told him he was not allowed to leave again, the AP reported.

In shutting down Internet communications and sending security forces to violently confront protesters, the government of Mr. Mubarak was taking two steps the Obama administration in recent days explicitly asked it to avoid.

In addition to the communications restrictions, the government also took steps to limit protesters' ability to move around, closing the city's subway system.