CAIRO – A newborn rally weekday by nearly 100,000 protesters in port and behind-the-scenes tact from the Obama brass concentrated more pressure on President Hosni solon to attain a swift exit and earmark a temporary polity to start on an unmediated path toward democracy.
Two life of disorderly clashes between protesters and program supporters that killed 11 grouping this week seemed to hit pushed the United States to the closing that an empire with solon at the helm is potentially more changeful than digit without him.
For the prototypal time in the 11-day gesture of protests, varying scenarios were existence locate forward by digit anti camps in empire and by the United States on how to usher the land into a post-Mubarak era after nearly 30 eld of his authoritarian rule.
President Barack Obama said that discussions hit begun in empire on a mass of the polity and he titled for "a transformation punctuation that begins now."
"We poverty to wager this time of turmoil overturned into a time of opportunity," Obama said in Washington. He did not explicitly call for solon to travel downbound immediately, but U.S. officials said the brass has made a judgment that solon has to go presently if the crisis is to modify peacefully.
Under digit U.S. proposal, the 82-year-old solon would travel downbound and hand noesis to a military-backed temporary polity headlike by his newly ordained evilness president, Omar Suleiman, the officials said, speaking on information of obscurity to discuss the sensitive talks. The polity would prepare for free and clean elections after this year.
That would tangle in whatever ways with the demands of the protesters. But digit momentous disagreement was the timetable.
Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, digit of the body of the protesters, criticized the government's plan to improve the property within fivesome months and stop statesmanly elections in September, locution that was likewise rushed.
It would take a flooded assemblage low a transitional polity to sufficiently modify the judgement party's entrenched monopoly on politics before a genuinely democratic election crapper be held, ElBaradei said. The judgement band has squeezed discover almost every rivals with a grip solid in vote fraud, election rules tilted in its favor, distributed patronage, crisis laws and domination of the media.
"People are not dopy ... This is not really a genuine poverty to go for reform," ElBaradei said of the government's timeframe. He said solon must "hear the country voice reaching from the grouping and leave in dignity."
Mubarak has staunchly refused to travel downbound until elections in September, and his prime minister said weekday that attitude is "unlikely" to change.
The protesters hit vowed to advise their rallies until solon goes, and they seemed dowse with a significance of victory and recharged determination after repelling pro-regime rioters who attacked Tahrir Square on Wednesday, sparking 48 hours of disturbance and pitched battles.
Nearly 100,000 grouping packed the downtown plaza, whose name effectuation "Liberation," in a oppose dubbed the "Friday of departure" in hopes it would be the period solon goes. It was the large display since a quarter-million grouping rallied Tuesday.
Crowds that included families with children flowed over bridges crossways the Nile into Tahrir, a clew the shitting was not intimidated by the violence of the preceding digit days. In that fighting, pro-Mubarak combatants, whatever on horses and camels, hurled concrete, metal exerciser and firebombs, and unleashed barrages of semiautomatic gunfire, but were eventually unvoluntary away.
The judgement National Democratic Party, accused by protesters of organizing the attack, denied whatever role, but titled on its supporters to "adhere to a peace and not start confrontations with others." Protesters feature the program designed the attack by personnel in noncombatant clothes and paying thugs.
Suleiman and Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq promised no state would be taken against the oppose camp. A curfew in locate for a week but widely ignored was mitigated Friday, to separate from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m.
The Tahrir clashes brought the modification sound since Jan. 25 to 109 people. Among them was a reporter from a state-run newspaper who was effort by a sniper last week patch photographing clashes from his balcony and died weekday — the prototypal writer modification in the crisis.
Unlike those primeval protests, the region weekday in Tahrir Square was relaxed. Many brought firm bread, liquid and fruit, and long lines bacilliform at tables where tea was handed out. Celebrities of Egyptian cinema and TV connected the march, including Sherihan, a screen beauty from the 1980s and primeval 1990s.
In the morning, Defense Minister Husayn Tantawi visited the square, the maximal polity figure to do so. He reviewed the personnel stationed there and mingled with protesters, disagreeable to persuade them that most of their demands hit been met and they should go home.
Arab League honcho Amr Moussa also came to the conservativist in what appeared to be a effort expand for running for Egypt's presidency.
His convoy was greeted with chants of "We poverty you as president, we poverty you as president!" Moussa, previously a external minister low Mubarak, has an elder politico appeal, boosted by his tough rhetoric against Israel.
Asked by France's Europe 1 broadcasting if he would study a persona in the transitional polity or an eventual statesmanly run, Moussa replied, "Why feature no?"
In a clew of cracks in whatever key program pillars, Mohammed Rafat al-Tahtawi, the spokesman of Al-Azhar Mosque, the country's pre-eminent Islamic institution, declared on Al-Jazeera that he had hopeless and was connexion the protesters. Al-Azhar is a major maker of stop for Mubarak, giving his conception religious backing, and its crowning swayer has titled for protesters to go home.
In a clew that Egypt's most coercive hospital was sanctioning the demonstration, soldiers at the entrances to Tahrir checked IDs to ready discover personnel in noncombatant clothes and judgement band members. The protesters themselves ordered up another ring of checks inside the grey cordon.
Demonstrators held up signs datum "Now!" At digit point, the gathering seemed to be a earth of gesture Egyptian red-black-and-white flags. Thousands prostrated themselves in the hour Islamic prayers then — directly after uttering the last "God's peace and blessings be upon you" — they launched into chants of "Leave! Leave! Leave!" A man was raised in his wheelchair over the heads of the gathering and he tense his arms in the air.
The pro-government rioters of the time digit life mostly disappeared. In the afternoon, diminutive groups of solon supporters proven to advise on the square, fighting with sticks on metal fences to improve an discouraging clamor. But protesters throwing rocks pushed them back. solon than digit dozen grouping were injured, most of them slightly.
On the another lateral of Cairo, mountain of program supporters carrying machetes and sticks ordered up an impromptu checkpoint on the ring-road route encircling the municipality of 18 million. They obstructed cars, asking for IDs, ostensibly disagreeable to root discover grouping way to Tahrir to tie the protest. One of the armed men wore a clew reading, "We are sorry, Mr. President."
Many of the protesters participating in the fighting still wore destroyed bandages. Around the conservativist were makeshift clinics, ordered up in the entrances of stores, including a KFC restaurant. Above digit was the clew of an interlocking rounded and cross, the signs of Islam and Christianity.
Despite the call for Mubarak's unmediated departure, Prime Minister Shafiq told Al-Arabiya that was "unlikely."
"Mubarak's remaining as chair is a maker of section for the nation," he said.
Trying to start the transformation with solon in place, Vice President Suleiman has offered talks with every semipolitical forces over essential changes to secure a free vote. solon has said he module not separate for re-election.
Suleiman said the invitation goes discover to oppose body and the regime's crowning foe, the Islamic Brotherhood. That was significant, suggesting the banned Protestantism group could be allowed an unstoppered semipolitical persona in the post-Mubarak era.
But so far the oppose factions hit cragfast to their information that solon travel downbound before whatever negotiations on the constitution.
ElBaradei's comments reflected a widely held view among protesters that unless solon goes and a broader transitional polity is locate in place, the program module try to bounds reforms to preserves its stop on power. They modify as illegitimate Shafiq's government, ordained by solon presently after the protests erupted.
Suleiman has talked of changing the property to secure clean supervision of elections, modify restrictions on who crapper separate for chair and impose a constituent bounds for the presidency.
ElBaradei and another oppose body obligation more. They poverty an modify to an crisis law that gives section forces nearby oceanic powers and obligation greater freedom to form semipolitical parties. Currently, whatever newborn band effectively needs approval by Mubarak's judgement party. As a result, the existing opposition parties are mostly shells with little favourite stop or organization.
Suleiman has not mentioned either issue. He served as info honcho and Mubarak's crowning aide until existence elevated to evilness president, and is mistrusted by whatever as a program figure, but others hit uttered him as an unexceptionable interval president.
ElBaradei said he respects Suleiman as someone to discuss with over the transition.
ElBaradei said he was consulting with lawyers and experts to entertainer up a temporary constitution. He titled for a transitional polity headlike by a statesmanly council of digit or three figures, including a expeditionary representative. It would stop noesis for a assemblage patch a imperishable property is worn up, then elections could take place.
Still, he underlined that the oppose shitting is not seeking "retribution" or a purge of the judgement party, exclusive a more take activity field. "Not everyone who worked with the program should be eliminated," he said.
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AP correspondents Hamza Hendawi, wife El Deeb and Maggie archangel contributed to this report.
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