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Scores of Demonstrators Killed in Egypt Scores of Demonstrators Killed in Egypt
(about 4 hours later)
CAIRO — The police and armed civilians opened fire Saturday with live ammunition on protesters against Egypt’s new military government, witnesses said, killing scores of people as hopes faded that the Egyptian military would reach any political accommodation with the Muslim Brotherhood and its ousted president, Mohamed Morsi. CAIRO — The Egyptian authorities unleashed a ferocious attack on Islamist protesters early Saturday, killing at least 56 people in the second mass killing of demonstrators in three weeks and one of the deadliest attacks since Egypt’s revolution in early 2011.
Clashes between the police and Mr. Morsi’s supporters erupted about 11:30 p.m. Friday. Witnesses said the police were trying to disperse protesters as they approached a central Cairo bridge, using tear gas at first, but then the officers, joined by armed civilians, fired birdshot and ultimately live ammunition to drive the protesters back. Police officers joined by civilians fired live ammunition at supporters of the former president, Mohamed Morsi, who was ousted by the military three weeks ago.
By later Saturday morning the bodies of at least 29 protesters were seen laid out on concrete floors in a makeshift morgue, while there were 20 more dead at a nearby hospital. The Muslim Brotherhood put the death count at 70 people. The attack, in which some victims were killed with gunshot wounds to the head, appeared to offer further proof that Egypt’s new leaders were widening their crackdown on Mr. Morsi’s Islamist allies in the Muslim Brotherhood and suggested that Egypt’s security services felt no need to show any restraint.
“They are not shooting to wound, they are shooting to kill,” said Gehad el-Haddad, a spokesman for the Brotherhood. “They are not shooting to wound,” Gehad al-Haddad, a Brotherhood spokesman told The Associated Press. “They are shooting to kill.”
The burst of violence came after a vast state-orchestrated display of military power Friday, with army helicopters hovering low over a huge throng of flag-waving, pro-military demonstrators in Tahrir Square and soldiers deploying in armored personnel carriers across the capital. With hundreds of people gravely wounded, the toll seemed likely to surpass the more than 60 deaths on July 8, when soldiers and police officers fired on pro-Morsi demonstrators.
The crowds had turned out in Cairo and other Egyptian cities in response to a call by the defense minister, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, for mass demonstrations he said would give him a “mandate” to fight terrorism, a phrase widely understood to mean crackdowns on the Brotherhood. The killings came a day after hundreds of thousands of Egyptians marched in support of the military after its commander called for mass demonstrations to give him a “mandate” to fight terrorism. That appeal, by Gen. Abdul Fattah el-Sisi, was widely seen to auger an imminent crackdown on Mr. Morsi’s Islamist allies in the Muslim Brotherhood.
The mass gathering was another blow to the Brotherhood, the Arab world’s most prominent Islamist group, which until recently was the major political force in government, having repeatedly won elections after the country’s uprising two years ago. Hours after the violence, the interior minister, Mohamed Ibrahim, quickly absolved his men of any responsibility. His officers, Mr. Ibrahim said, “have never and will never shoot a bullet on any Egyptian.”
The Brotherhood and several Western and Arab diplomats had called for the military, which has held Mr. Morsi incommunicado since his ouster three weeks ago, to release him as a good-will gesture, in hopes of brokering a compromise that would end the standoff between Islamists and the military. That now seems almost impossible, analysts say, with indications that the military is carrying out investigations geared toward a broader legal assault on the Brotherhood. He blamed the Muslim Brotherhood for the deaths, referring to “those who preach and incite violence.” And he suggested that further repression was imminent as the authorities prepared to break up sit-ins that Mr. Morsi’s supporters have held for weeks.
“This is a preparation for eliminating the Brotherhood,” said Emad Shahin, a political science professor at the American University in Cairo. Mr. Ibrahim said he hoped the protesters would be “reasonable” and remove themselves to avoid further bloodshed.
The Brotherhood responded defiantly on Friday, with pro-Morsi marches taking place along dozens of planned routes in Cairo and other cities. The group has continued to demand Mr. Morsi’s reinstatement as a precondition for any negotiations and labeled General Sisi’s plea for street demonstrations as a call to “civil war.” Its leaders insist that they are not seeking violence. Their marches, which regularly snarl busy Cairo streets, have become increasingly confrontational, setting the stage for the violent clashes overnight. “We all hope and want the sit-ins to be broken up now, but blood is precious for us as well,” he said. “Be sure that dispersing the sit-in with force will lead to losses.”
“Our blood and souls we will sacrifice for Islam,” some pro-Morsi protesters chanted, while others chanted his name and held posters bearing his face. The violence broke out on Friday night after a day of massive, competing marches by supporters of Mr. Morsi and his opponents expressing solidarity with the military. At least eight people died on Friday, but there was not the kind of widespread violence that many had feared after General Sisi’s speech last Wednesday calling for demonstrations in support of the military.
In Tahrir Square, by contrast, posters bearing General Sisi’s face bobbed above the crowd, amid a mood of aggressive nationalism that has gripped much of Egypt since the military removed Mr. Morsi. Crowds began gathering early in the day, with protesters hugging the soldiers guarding the entrances to the square and posing for pictures with them. Television networks delayed daytime serials broadcast during the holy month of Ramadan, to encourage people to join the anti-Brotherhood demonstrations. That changed at about 10:30 p.m., when groups of Mr. Morsi’s supporters left their vast encampment in Nasr City, marching toward the central October 6 Bridge, where police officers were stationed, according to witnesses. Several people said that the protesters left the camp because it had become overcrowded, and that people had fanned out from the encampment along several boulevards. Others said they planned to march through a nearby neighborhood.
The two protest camps also clashed on Friday in the port city of Alexandria, where seven people were reported dead and scores were injured. The group that came under attack walked down Nasr Street, past the reviewing stand where former President Anwar al-Sadat was assassinated in 1981, and the pyramid-shaped memorial to the unknown soldier across the street, toward the bridge.
Well over 100 people have been killed in clashes between supporters and opponents of the Brotherhood in the last month, including a polarizing episode on July 8 in which soldiers and police officers fired on Brotherhood members and killed 62. “We didn’t have any weapons,” said Mohamed Abdulhadi, who said he joined the march, which was “not violent.” More than 10 other witnesses confirmed his assertion.
Mr. Morsi, whose face regularly appears on large banners in Islamist marches across the country, is being investigated on charges that he conspired with the militant Palestinian group Hamas in a prison escape. The charges appear to relate to his own 2011 escape from Wadi Natroun prison. He is accused of conspiring with Hamas in “hostile acts,” including the kidnapping and killing of police officers and soldiers, according to a report on the Web site of Egypt’s flagship state newspaper, Al Ahram. He was also ordered detained for an additional 15 days, the report said. The Interior Ministry released a video after the killings that it said showed Morsi supporters firing birdshot at the police and damaging property.  It showed protesters throwing rocks, unidentified people wandering into traffic, and one man pulling out what appears to be a silver pistol and firing it, though it is not clear who the man is, or which side of the fighting he was on.  
The Wadi Natroun accusations, which have been emphasized by his political opponents for some time, gained little traction until after Mr. Morsi was deposed, and they have been dismissed by many human rights advocates as political. Mr. Morsi was arrested in the final days of Mr. Mubarak’s government, and after his release, Mr. Morsi said in a television interview that he was among 30 members of his movement who were broken out of prison by men they did not know. Mohamed Saeed, a 27-year-old agricultural engineer, said he and some of the other protesters started to exchange words with the officers before even reaching the bridge.
The announcement of the formal detention and possible charges may also be aimed at providing legal cover in the face of international pressure on the Egyptian authorities to release Mr. Morsi. On Wednesday, Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, joined the United States, the European Union and other bodies in expressing concern about Mr. Morsi’s unexplained detention. “You know how it is,” he said. “Some of us said some provocative things, and the tear gas started.” The protesters threw rocks.The confrontation quickly escalated, Mr. Saeed and others said. The protesters feared that the police were preparing to storm their encampment, so they started building brick walls on the road to “to prevent them from coming into the sit-in,” Mr. Saeed said.
In a statement, Salah al-Bardaweel, a spokesman for Hamas, denounced the accusations and challenged Egyptian prosecutors to present evidence that the group had been involved in the prison breaks. “This is an implication of Hamas into a dishonorable political battle,” he said. An hour and a half after the clashes started, the police and their allies started firing live ammunition and pellet guns, Mr. Saeed said. Other witnesses said they saw snipers on the roofs of nearby buildings.
Mr. Haddad, the Brotherhood spokesman, said Friday that the threatened charges amounted to a repudiation by the military of the revolt that toppled Mr. Mubarak and “might increase the number of angry people on the ground.” Ahmed Hagag was there with his best friend, Ashraf, both of them woefully underequipped for a fight. “We went there with masks and vinegar,” he said, in preparation for the tear gas. His friend Ashraf, who had been “yearning for martyrdom,” didn’t want to stand in the back, Mr. Hagag said.
“It will only help strengthen the realization that the Mubarak state is back,” he said. “So it happened, and a bullet ended up in his heart.”
At many protests, where thousands of Brotherhood supporters and their Islamist allies have been camped out for weeks, bearded clerics called for an Islamic state while the crowd chanted, “The people demand the return of the president.” The violence went until morning, choking a field hospital nearby with bodies and patients near death.
“I think the criminal charges were filed to push the Brotherhood to violence, so the military could then use that as an excuse to crack down,” said Soha Emera, a 43-year-old woman in a pale head scarf, standing near the stage. “But they have stayed peaceful. Look what happened today: it was other people attacking the Brotherhood.” Before the police retreated at about 8 a.m., a spurt of gunfire came from their positions, sending people scrambling for cover and setting off a fresh stampede of ambulances.
In Tahrir Square, a stronghold for Mr. Morsi’s opponents for weeks, many in the crowd seemed heartened by news of the formal detention and legal accusations. In the morgue of the field hospital, 29 bodies sat in a row covered with white sheets. A medic, Mahmoud al-Arabi, said the wounds revealed a disturbing pattern of accuracy: many of the dead were shot in their head, chest or neck.
“Morsi is nothing but a criminal, and the Egyptian people will be victorious,” said Ibrahim Abdelrahman, a 60-year-old retiree, as he waved an Egyptian flag. “The people, the army, the police: we are all one hand.” Other doctors walked around in a daze, near relatives in disbelief. They included a woman, who stumbled down the stairs after seeing a stricken relative.

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting from Cairo and Gerry Mullany contributed from Hong Kong.

“Do you need a mosque?” a volunteer asked, but the woman kept walking.
Later Saturday, the Health Ministry said 38 people had been killed. The Brotherhood said the toll was 66.
The violence left the Brotherhood in an increasingly dire position, with limited options, said Samer S. Shehata, a professor of Arab politics at the University of Oklahoma and an authority on the Islamist group. “They really can’t resort to violence — they don’t have a militia and it runs against all their rhetoric and recent history,” Dr. Shehata said.
The group now faces the prospect of a broad legal ban of the kind it suffered under President Hosni Mubarak, and it is not even clear that it could avoid that even if it agreed to dismantle the sit-ins and relinquish its demands for the reinstatement of Mr. Morsi.
The interior minister on Saturday raised the prospect of a new threat to the Brotherhood, saying he was reconstituting a state security agency that under Mr. Mubarak, was responsible for monitoring Islamists and known for carrying out torture and forced disappearances.  
 Without security agencies that had a political focus, Mr. Ibrahim said, “the security of the country doesn’t work.”

Robert F. Worth contributed reporting.