Security forces clear Cairo mosque after long and tense stand-off lasting most of the day

 
Egyptian security forces, on an armoured vehicle, fire back at a gunman firing at them from the minaret of the al-Fateh mosque
Press Association17 August 2013

Egypt's security forces have cleared the al-Fath mosque close to Ramses Square in Cairo after a long stand-off with Muslim Brotherhood supporters barricaded inside, state media says. All the protesters have now been removed from the mosque, and many have been arrested, according to the security forces.

Egyptian security forces help an injured man leave the al-Fateh mosque (Picture: EPA)

The confrontation at the al-Fath mosque continued for most of the day - with exchanges of gunfire between security forces and protesters.

Meanwhile the interim PM has proposed legally dissolving the Brotherhood. The group supports the ousted President Mohammed Morsi, and wants him to be reinstated.

The Brotherhood is technically a banned organisation anyway - it was officially dissolved by Egypt's military rulers in 1954 - but it recently registered itself as a non-governmental organisation. If it was legally dissolved, its property and assets could be seized.

It has called for daily demonstrations since a crackdown on its protest camps in Cairo on Wednesday left hundreds of people dead.

On Friday, hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters gathered in Ramses Square for a "march of anger" about the bloodshed earlier in the week.

A mother holds her hands up as she escorts her son from the al-Fath mosque (Picture: EPA)

At least 173 people died across the country on Friday in clashes between the Brotherhood and the security forces.

Around 1,000 Muslim Brotherhood supporters were said to be holed up overnight in the mosque, which had been used as a field hospital during Friday's bloodshed.

Four Irish citizens were among the hundreds of people trapped inside. The three women and a teenager are children of Hussein Halawa - the Imam of Ireland's biggest mosque in Dublin.

The four siblings, who are on holiday in Egypt, sought refuge in the mosque after 80 people were killed during violent clashes between supporters of ousted president Mohammed Morsi and the security forces in Cairo yesterday. They had travelled to Egypt with their mother for a holiday earlier this summer. Their father remained in Dublin.

Supporters of Egypt's ousted Islamist president were vowing to defy a state of emergency with new protests today, the day after marches in Cairo devolved into the fiercest street battles that the capital has seen in more than two years.

The violence capped off a week that saw more than 700 people killed across the country - surpassing the combined death toll from two and a half years of violent protests since the ousting of longtime leader Hosni Mubarak until the toppling of president Mohammed Morsi, who hails from the Brotherhood, in a July 3 coup.

Horror: Egyptians mourn over the bodies of their relatives in the Al-Fath mosque in Cairo (Picture: AP)

Unlike in past clashes between protesters and police, Friday's violence introduced a combustible new mix, with residents and police in civilian clothing battling the marchers.

Few police in uniform were seen as neighbourhood watch groups and pro-Morsi protesters fired at one another for hours on a bridge that crosses over Cairo's Zamalek district, an upmarket island neighbourhood where many foreigners and ambassadors reside.

Friday's violence erupted shortly after midday prayers when tens of thousands of Brotherhood supporters answered the group's call to protest across Egypt in defiance of a military-imposed state of emergency following the bloodshed earlier this week.

Armed civilians manned impromptu checkpoints throughout the capital, banning Brotherhood marches from approaching and frisking anyone wanting to pass through. At one, residents barred ambulances and cars carrying wounded from Cairo's main battleground, Ramses Square, from reaching a hospital.

Several of the protesters said they were ready to die, writing their names and relatives' phone numbers on one another's chests and undershirts in case they were killed in Friday's clashes.

Tawfik Dessouki, a Brotherhood supporter, said he was fighting for "democracy" and against the military's ousting of Morsi.

"I am here for the blood of the people who died. We didn't have a revolution to go back to a police and military state again and to be killed by the state," he said during a march headed toward Ramses Square.

At least 12 people were killed near the square as some in the crowd tried to attack a police station, security officials said. Inside a mosque off Ramses Square, where the Brotherhood urged its Cairo supporters to converge, blood-soaked bodies with bullets to the head and chest lay next to one another.

The mosque-turned-morgue was also being used as a field hospital where the wounded were being wheeled in on wooden crates. One corpse had a name and phone number scribbled on the chest.

The Facebook page of the army spokesman, Col. Mohammed Ali, accused gunmen of firing from the mosque at nearby buildings. The upper floors of a commercial building towering over Ramses Square caught fire during the mayhem, with flames engulfing it for hours.

Similar battles played out in cities across the country, where people brandishing weapons attacked police and residents fired at one another.

The international community has urged both sides to show restraint and end the turmoil engulfing the nation. The European Union's foreign policy chief Baroness Ashton said Friday that the death toll over the last few days is "shocking" and that responsibility weighs heavily on the interim government and the wider political leadership in Egypt.

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