Soldiers beat demonstrators with batons in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Saturday in a second day of clashes that have killed nine people and wounded more than 300, marring the first free election most Egyptians can remember.
Protesters fled into side streets to escape the troops in riot gear, who grabbed people and battered them repeatedly even after they had been beaten to the ground, a Reuters journalist said. Shots were fired in the air.
Soldiers pulled down protester tents and set them on fire, local television footage showed.
In footage filmed by Reuters one soldier in a line of charging troops drew a pistol and fired a shot at retreating protesters.
The violence highlights tensions in Egypt 10 months after a popular revolt toppled President Hosni Mubarak.
The army generals who replaced him have angered some Egyptians by seeming reluctant to give up power. Others back the military as a force for badly needed stability during a difficult transition to democracy.
The army assault on Saturday followed skirmishes between protesters and troops. A fire destroyed archives in a building next to Tahrir, including historic documents dating back over two centuries.
An official blamed petrol bombs for starting the blaze, the state news agency MENA reported.
An army official said in a statement troops targeted thugs not protesters after shots were fired at soldiers and petrol bombs set the archive building ablaze, MENA reported.
The bloodshed follows unrest in which 42 people were killed in the week before November 28, the start of a phased parliamentary poll that is empowering Islamist parties repressed during the 30-year Mubarak era, when elections were routinely rigged.
Voting in the second round of a drawn-out election process seen as part of a promised transition from army to civilian rule by July passed off peacefully on Wednesday and Thursday.
Friday’s clashes pitted thousands of demonstrators against soldiers and plainclothes men who were seen at one point hurling rocks from the roof of a parliament building.
Army vehicles and soldiers were deployed at roads leading into Tahrir Square, the hub of the anti-Mubarak uprising.
