Turmoil sparks fear of bloody Sunday in Egypt
Millions expected to mark leader’s ascent to power
CAIRO • Tens of thousands of backers and opponents of egypt’s Islamist president held competing rallies in the capital Friday and new clashes erupted between the two sides in the country’s second largest city, Alexandria, in a prelude to massive nationwide protests planned by the opposition this weekend demanding Mohammed Morsi’s removal.
For the past several days, Muslim Brotherhood members and Morsi’s opponents have clashed in several cities in the Nile delta in violence that has killed at least five people.
Many fear the clashes are a sign of more widespread and bloodier battles to come Sunday, the anniversary of Mr. Morsi’s inauguration, when the opposition says it will bring millions into the streets around the country.
“We must be alert lest we slide into a civil war that does not differentiate between supporters and opponents,” said Sheik Hassan al-Shafie, a senior cleric at Al-Azhar, the country’s most eminent Muslim religious institution.
Cairo International Airport was flooded with departures, in an exodus airport officials called unprecedented. Many of those leaving were families of egyptian officials and businessmen, and those of foreign and Arab League diplomats — as well as many egyptian Christians.
In Alexandria, fighting began when thousands of anti-Morsi protesters marched toward the Brotherhood headquarters, where up to a 1,000 supporters of the president were deployed.
Someone on the Islamist side fired birdshot on the marchers, and the melee erupted. Security forces fired tear gas at the Brotherhood supporters, but when the two sides continued battling, they withdrew. At least 70 people were injured. In the early evening, some protesters broke into the building and began to trash it.
Angry protesters also set fire to the local headquarters of the Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom & Justice Party, in the Nile delta city of Aga.
each side has insisted it is peaceful and will remain so on Sunday — and each has blamed the other for the violence so far.
Tamarod, the activist group whose anti-Morsi petition campaign evolved into Sunday’s planned protest, said it was opposed “to any attack against anybody, whatever the disagreement with this person was,” and accused the Brotherhood of sparking violence to scare people from participating Sunday.
The group says it has collected nearly 20 million signatures in the country of 90 million demanding Morsi step down.
The Brotherhood says the five killed in the delta clashes were its members. Some people “think they can topple a democratically elected president by killing his support groups,” Gehad el-Haddad, a Brotherhood spokesman, wrote on his Twitter account.
In Cairo, tens of thousands of Morsi supporters, mainly Islamists, filled a public square outside the rabia el-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo, not far from the presidential palace. The palace — one of the sites where the opposition plans to hold rallies Sunday — has been surrounded by concrete walls. Islamist parties have decided to stage a sit-in at the site through Sunday.