CAIRO — The Egyptian military moved on multiple fronts Sunday to display its strength and consolidate support as factions within the government and on the street vied for control of this strategically vital nation at the heart of the Arab world.
With pro-democracy demonstrators demanding the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak for a sixth day, the military sent conflicting signals about where its loyalties lie. On the streets, soldiers curried favor with demonstrators. But F-16 fighter jets streaked through the sky, and in images on state-run television, the nation’s military brass appeared alongside the embattled president.
All across Egypt, troops in tanks fanned out to work with residents in chasing down marauding bands of knife-wielding thugs and to impose some semblance of order after the nearly complete disappearance of uniformed Egyptian police.
Egyptians of all political persuasions accused the much-maligned police of being behind a campaign to terrorize the country — either by perpetrating the violence or by standing aside and allowing it to occur.
As hatred toward the police grew, so did admiration for the army — which may be the intent of Egypt’s security establishment as it struggles to find a way out of the crisis. The apparently contradictory signals from the army suggested that the question of who will rule Egypt remains very much in doubt, nearly a week after protesters turned this country’s political universe upside down with a mass mobilization that appears to be growing stronger.
Opposition leaders gathered Sunday to try to organize their efforts, and they tentatively settled on pro-democracy activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei as interim leader in any negotiations with the government. Baradei told reporters that he has the “popular and political support” necessary to begin the process of forming a unity government and that he would be seeking contact with the army to discuss a political transition.
But Baradei received only a lukewarm reception when he spoke later Sunday at Tahrir Square, the capital’s central plaza, and some protesters said they would rather continue to operate as a diffuse people’s movement than as an organized opposition.
Thousands of protesters who marched peacefully under military protection vowed to stay in the square until Mubarak resigns from office.
Images broadcast on state television featured the 82-year-old Mubarak alongside the military and intelligence chiefs, as well as the defense minister. In a possible indication of an ongoing power struggle, the interior minister did not appear to be present.
The army is believed to have the power to topple Mubarak if it chooses, but so far it has not done so, which may mean its gestures of solidarity with the protesters are meant only to placate the movement as the president engineers a succession plan.
On Saturday, Mubarak announced that Omar Suleiman would be his vice president, making the intelligence chief the most likely possible heir to authority in a country where power typically passes from one strongman to the next.
Demonstrators are cautiously optimistic that the armed forces are on their side, but they also know that Mubarak is a former military officer who has enjoyed unbroken backing from the army for the nearly 30 years he has reigned.
Protesters held aloft a banner Sunday reading, “The army must choose between Egypt and Mubarak.”
When the air force sent fighter jets to sweep low over Tahrir Square in the late afternoon — their engines booming as they passed — the crowd’s reaction reflected the confusion of the moment: Some cheered what they saw as a show of support for their cause, while others cursed an attempt at intimidation.
Protesters have been resolute in insisting they will not accept Mubarak or any other member of the president’s inner circle as their leader. The demonstrators, who proudly assert that they answer to no individual or organization, have demanded fair and free national elections to choose Egypt’s president. Egyptians have never had such a choice, and a move toward democracy in this nation of 80 million would have deep reverberations across a region traditionally led by unelected autocrats.
Protesters called Sunday for the United States to openly embrace their cause, with many saying they believed that Mubarak’s ability to stay in office would hinge on whether he continues to enjoy backing from Washington.
“We want to be like America. We want to choose our president,” said Mohammed el-Rady, a 32-year-old accountant who works for the government but was nonetheless on the streets protesting against the president. “This movement is not about Islam. It’s not about religion. It’s about people who have been suffering for 30 years who want democracy.”
El-Rady, like many Egyptians interviewed Sunday, said he had seen police officers who had shed their uniforms engage in looting and vandalism overnight.
At a jail outside Cairo, thousands of prisoners escaped after police abandoned their posts, according to multiple reports. Egyptians interviewed about the jailbreak said they believed the Interior Ministry had deliberately allowed the criminals to go free so that the police can later justify a vicious crackdown to restore order.
Late Sunday, state television announced that police would be back on the streets today and that a curfew that had been universally ignored since Friday would again come into effect.
