Scammer
Banned
[video]http://cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2011/02/03/ac.cairo.heavy.gunfire.cnn[/video]
-- Soldiers moved between supporters and foes of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo on Thursday, the same day the government said it was beginning communication with opposition parties.
An opposition leader has said his party will not participate in talks with the newly-appointed Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman.
Mounir Abdel-Nour, secretary-general of the secular liberal Wafd Party, said he was invited for the talks, and accepted on condition that protesters would not be attacked.
The military, which has said it would not use force on peaceful demonstrators, had largely remained still until now and urged anti-government protesters to return home.
-- Soldiers moved between supporters and foes of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo on Thursday, the same day the government said it was beginning communication with opposition parties.
An opposition leader has said his party will not participate in talks with the newly-appointed Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman.
Mounir Abdel-Nour, secretary-general of the secular liberal Wafd Party, said he was invited for the talks, and accepted on condition that protesters would not be attacked.
The military, which has said it would not use force on peaceful demonstrators, had largely remained still until now and urged anti-government protesters to return home.
As dawn broke Thursday, heavy gunfire reverberated in central Cairo as the two sides continued to face off at Tahrir Square.
By mid-morning, scores of bandaged demonstrators remained in the square. One man accused of being a pro-Mubarak spy was rushed by a crowd of men who restrained him. Earlier, anti-Mubarak protesters captured a man, pulled out his identification and learned he was a member of the police -- whom anti-government protesters clashed violently with last week.
Egypt's health minister said on state-run Nile TV that the number of injuries at Tahrir Square had reached 836 -- including 200 within one hour on Thursday morning. And two doctors at the scene said they saw at least five bodies on Thursday morning and several more with critical injuries.
CNN could not independently verify the casualty toll.
Early Thursday, sustained fire from automatic weapons, including from what sounded like a heavy machine gun, echoed around the square. "No one hurt anyone," some shouted. Others chanted a prayer.
Anti-government demonstrators hunkered down behind makeshift barricades and small fires burned in the square, with some spreading to trees and walls.
Chunks of concrete and Molotov cocktails flew in Tahrir Square during the escalating crisis Thursday.
A national security official in U.S. President Barack Obama's administration told CNN late Wednesday that the situation in the country could "turn really ugly," and the next 24 to 48 hours will be critical.
Another U.S. official said the administration's conversations with Egyptian officials have turned tense and urgent -- with the U.S. side voicing hope the military will pressure Mubarak to step down.
While the official was encouraged by signs that the military was not involved in the violence Wednesday, allowing such fights between supporters and opponents of Mubarak to go on "could fairly be interpreted as a choice, and a troubling choice."
Reported fatalities in the first eight days of demonstrations ranged as high as 300, but CNN could not independently confirm the death toll.
Supporters of Mubarak, who had been largely silent since the unrest began, came out in full force Wednesday -- in one case wielding whips and thundering through the crowd on horses and camels.
"What you are seeing is the demonstration of the real Egyptian people who are trying to take back their country, trying to take back their street," said businessman Khaled Ahmed, who described himself as "pro-Egyptian."
But some observers said the pro-Mubarak push Wednesday was likely orchestrated by a regime bent on breaking up peaceful demonstrations.
"These are tactics that are well-known in Egypt," Michele Dunne, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told CNN's John King.
Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution said the "rent-a-thugs" were likely sanctioned and paid by the government. This is meant to create an image of chaos so the government can move in to restore order, he said.
On Wednesday, some pro-Mubarak demonstrators who were captured by anti-Mubarak protesters confessed that they were paid 50 Egyptian pounds -- or less than $10 -- to come out and support Mubarak.
It was unclear whether such confrontations were being repeated elsewhere. Other Cairo neighborhoods were calm, and rallies in Egypt's second-largest city, Alexandria, were largely peaceful.
Some who profess neutrality said Mubarak -- who vowed to not seek re-election -- should be allowed to finish his term.
"I'd be worried if the president packed up and left at the request of 60,000 people," Cairo resident Waleed Tawfik said Wednesday. "84 million is a larger voice ... (to) reconstruct the government and reshuffle ministers won't happen over day and night."
Tawfik added that Tahrir Square is the size of a football stadium, and the events there are not representative of peaceful protests elsewhere.
"There are 29 governors in Egypt," Tawfik said. "I don't understand why the whole international media is focused on a geographic area around about a half-kilometer by a half-kilometer."
The crisis has paralyzed the Egyptian economy, as the government has closed banks, idled trains and shuttered schools. Markets are running short of basic food staples, and the situation is hurting the ability of ordinary citizens to join the demonstrations, opposition activist Ziad Aly told CNN.
"We can't get enough bread. We can't get enough food supplies," he said.
Vice President Omar Suleiman reiterated the government stance that the people have been heard, that they should go home and stop demonstrating.
The state-run television network, Nile TV, sought to portray the unrest as a "foreign conspiracy" fueled by international journalists, several of whom -- including CNN's Anderson Cooper -- were attacked during Wednesday's clashes.
Despite reports that shots had been fired, Nile TV's reporters denied any shooting had taken place or even that violence had broken out in Tahrir Square. The network also said that members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood were heading to the square "to throw balls of fire and to start acts of riots and violence."
When asked if that were true, Mohamed Morsy, a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, said the action came from all segments of the Egyptian people, "not the Muslim Brotherhood only."
Morsy told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that the time for change is now, not when Mubarak's term ends.
"We need a new era, a new regime," Morsy said. "We have a constitution."
On Tuesday, Mubarak said during a televised speech that he would not seek re-election. Though Mubarak's concessions were large and remarkable for a man who has held a tight grip on power for three decades, it was too little, too late for many Egyptians.
The Egyptian crisis is among the aftershocks of the revolt in Tunisia that forced the nation's longtime strongman to flee to Saudi Arabia in January. In Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh -- who has been in office for 32 years -- said Wednesday he will not run for president nor hand over power to his son once his term ends in 2013.
