CAIRO — Bursts of heavy gunfire rang out in Tahrir Square today, and a protest organizer said three anti-government demonstrators were killed.
Mustafa al-Naggar said he saw three bodies being carried toward an ambulance before dawn. He said automatic-weapons fire came from at least three locations in the distance.
The military has had the square ringed with tank squads to try to keep order, but al-Naggar said they did not intervene.
The health minister did not answer a phone call seeking confirmation of the deaths.
Hours earlier, supporters of President Hosni Mubarak charged into Cairo’s central square on horses and camels, brandishing whips, while others rained firebombs from rooftops in what appeared to be an orchestrated assault against protesters trying to topple Egypt’s leader of 30 years. Three people died, and 600 were injured.
The protesters accused Mubarak’s regime of unleashing a force of paid thugs and plainclothes police to crush their 9-day-old movement, a day after the 82-year-old president refused to immediately step down. They showed off police ID badges that they said were wrested from their attackers. Some government workers said their employers ordered them into the streets.
Mustafa el-Fiqqi, a top official from the ruling National Democratic Party, said businessmen connected to the ruling party were responsible for what happened.
The notion that the state may have coordinated violence against protesters, who had kept a peaceful vigil for five days, prompted a sharp rebuke from the United States.
“If any of the violence is instigated by the government, it should stop immediately,” said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.
The clashes marked a dangerous new phase in Egypt’s upheaval: the first significant violence between government supporters and opponents. The crisis took a sharp turn for the worse almost immediately after Mubarak rejected the calls for him to give up power or leave the country, stubbornly proclaiming he would die on Egyptian soil.
His words were a blow to the protesters. They also suggest that authorities want to turn back the clock to the tight state control enforced before the protests began.
Mubarak’s supporters turned up on the streets Wednesday in significant numbers for the first time. State TV had reported that foreigners were caught distributing anti- Mubarak leaflets, apparently trying to depict the movement as fueled by groups outside Egypt.
After midnight, 10 hours after the clashes began, the two sides were locked in a standoff at a street corner, with the protesters hunkered behind a line of metal sheets hurling firebombs back and forth with government backers on the rooftop above. The rain of bottles of flaming gasoline set nearby cars and wreckage on the sidewalk ablaze.
The scenes of mayhem were certain to add to the fear that is already running high in the city of 18 million people after a weekend of looting and lawlessness and the escape of thousands of prisoners from jails in the chaos.
Soldiers surrounding Tahrir Square fired occasional shots in the air throughout the day but did not appear to otherwise intervene in the fierce clashes, and no uniformed police were seen. Most of the troops took shelter behind or inside the armored vehicles and tanks stationed at the entrances to the square.
“Why don’t you protect us?” some protesters shouted at the soldiers, who replied they did not have orders to do so and told people to go home.
“The army is neglectful. They let them in,” said Emad Nafa, a 52-year- old among the protesters.
Some protesters wept and prayed in the square where a day before they had held a joyous, peaceful rally of a quarter-million, the largest demonstration so far.
Health Minister Ahmed Sameh Farid said three people died and at least 611 were injured in Tahrir Square.
