EGYPT UPDATE: At least 26 dead in protests across Egypt

(AFP/Bernama) – CAIRO – At least 26 people were killed in clashes across Egypt on Friday as tens of thousands of supporters of deposed president Mohamed Morsi turned out to protest his ouster by a popularly backed military coup.

A coalition of Islamist groups including Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood vowed  further “peaceful” protests in a statement early Saturday, demanding the  military restore the country’s first democratically elected leader.

In the restive north of the Sinai peninsula, armed Morsi supporters stormed  the provincial headquarters in the town of El-Arish after a gunfight and raised  the black banner of Al-Qaeda-inspired Islamist militants, an AFP correspondent  said.

 At least 12 people were killed in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria as  Morsi’s supporters and opponents fought a pitched street battle, the official  MENA news agency said.

 Police continued to round up top Islamists, announcing the arrest of  Khairat al-Shater, widely seen as the most powerful man behind Morsi in the  Muslim Brotherhood movement.

 A spokesman for UN chief  Ban Ki-moon quoted him calling for a peaceful end  to the crisis. “There is no place for retribution or for the exclusion of any  major party or community”.    In Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square, at least two people were killed when Morsi  supporters traded fire with his opponents, state television reported.

The clashes subsided when the army separated the protesters using armoured  vehicles.

 “We are not taking sides. Our mission is to secure the lives of  protesters,” military spokesman Colonel Ahmed Ali told AFP.

 Four protesters were killed outside the Republican Guard headquarters after  breaking away from a pro-Morsi demonstration, the official MENA news agency  reported.

 The bodies of two people were covered with sheets, said an AFP  correspondent, adding that another protester was shot in the head.

 Soldiers had warned a protester waving a picture of the ousted president  not to approach their barbed wire cordon.

 They opened fire when he ignored them, and shots were then heard from both  sides, an AFP reporter said.

 The Islamists accuse the military of conducting a brazen coup against  Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, after millions called  for his ouster on the June 30 anniversary of his first turbulent year in power.
   Friday’s violence came as the supreme guide of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood,  Mohammed Badie, vowed that members of the Islamist movement would throng the  streets in their millions until his presidency is restored.

   Badie appeared at Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque to screams of joy from  jubilant supporters, following reports he had been detained after Wednesday’s  ouster of the president.

   “Millions will remain in the squares until we carry our elected president,  Mohamed Morsi, on our shoulders,” Badie told the crowd, before leading chants  of “Military coup!” and “Invalid!”

   Violence between Morsi’s supporters and opponents also left one protester  dead at Assiut in central Egypt and another in Minya, officials said.
   In the Sinai, where gunmen killed five policemen and Islamists killed a  soldier in a machinegun and rocket attack.

   In El-Arish, at least 16 people were wounded in clashes before armed Morsi  supporters stormed the provincial HQ.

   The armed forces have already sworn in Adly Mansour as interim president,  and he issued his first decree on Friday, dissolving the Islamist-led  parliament and appointing a new intelligence chief.

   Before Friday’s rallies, around a dozen low-flying military jets screamed  across Cairo, but the show of force failed to deter Morsi’s supporters.

   Morsi, who has not been seen since Wednesday, had issued a defiant call for  supporters to protect his elected “legitimacy”, in a recorded speech aired  hours after his removal.

   The military had said it supported the right to peaceful protest, but  warned against violence and acts of civil disobedience.

   Ahead of Friday’s rallies, Mansour had called in a television interview for  unity.

   “All I can say to the Egyptian people is to be one body. We had enough of  division,” he told Britain’s Channel 4.
   Prominent liberal leader Mohamed ElBaradei defended the military’s  intervention, saying “the other option was a civil war.

   “We were between a rock and a hard place, and people need to understand  that,” the former UN nuclear watchdog chief told the BBC.

   Army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced Morsi’s overthrow on  Wednesday night, citing his inability to end a deepening political crisis.
   Military police rounded up senior Brotherhood members, although two were  later released.

   Morsi himself was “preventively detained”, a senior officer told AFP.

   A judicial source said the prosecution would on Monday begin questioning  Brotherhood members, including Morsi, for “insulting the judiciary”.    Morsi’s rule was marked by accusations that he concentrated power in the  hands of the Brotherhood.

   His supporters argue Morsi was confronted at every turn with a hostile  bureaucracy left over by Hosni Mubarak, overthrown in the Arab Spring-inspired  uprising of 2011.

Meanwhile, Deputy chief of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), Khayrat al-Shater, was arrested Friday in Cairo on charges of inciting violence against opponents, China’s Xinhua news agency said quoting the official Middle East News Agency (MENA)’s report.    

Also on Friday, the police arrested the official lawyer Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Maqsood of MB, to which the ousted President Mohamed Morsi belongs,and former Salafist presidential candidate Hazem Salah Abu Ismail.    

Earlier reports had said that MB’s general guide Mohammed Badie had been arrested, but the man delivered a speech to throngs of Morsi’s supporters in Rabia al-Adawiya Square in Cairo on Friday evening, denying the news as “fake.”    

A number of MB and Islamist leaders have been arrested since the ouster of Morsi by the military on Wednesday and a couple of affiliated TV channels were also shut down.    

Security sources said the actions are meant to prevent the Islamist leaders from urging their supporters for acts of violence against the security forces or the public celebrating Morsi’s removal.