"Egypt unrest: Protesters hold firm after violent day"

"The BBC's Jeremy Bowen has been following the day's events in Cairo
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Egypt Unrest

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Egyptian anti-government protesters remain entrenched in Cairo's main square, after at least three people were killed in clashes with supporters of President Hosni Mubarak.

Hundreds of people were also wounded as rival groups fought pitched battles in and around Tahrir Square, in the worst violence in nine days of protests.

The army has urged people to go home.

The protesters are demanding President Mubarak's resignation. He insists he will serve out his term.

His current presidential term, his fifth, ends in September.

The unrest has left about 300 people dead across the country over more than a week, according to UN estimates.

Cairo's Tahrir Square has been the main focus of the protests.

The BBC's Yolande Knell in Cairo says the situation there remained tense on Wednesday night, with fires burning outside the Egyptian Museum.
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At the scene
image of John Simpson John Simpson World Affairs Editor, Cairo

Pro-Mubarak groups have been pushing their way to the edges of Tahrir Square all afternoon.

Fights have been breaking out and large numbers of missiles - bricks, stones and bits of ironwork - have been flying through the air on both sides.

During the day, about half the demonstrators in the square slowly filtered out.

There are too few soldiers here to keep any kind of order. The most they can do is prevent the big numbers of Mubarak loyalists from getting into the square, bottling them up into huge groups on the edges.

From time to time in the side streets, big pro-Mubarak groups gather around people who have left the square, shouting at them and punching them.

There have been reports of people being knifed, but the casualties you mostly see are from the bricks and stones which have been raining down indiscriminately.

The net effect of the arrival in force of groups of Mubarak supporters seems to have been to strengthen the resolve of the hard-line demonstrators to stay inside the square. The gradual drift away from the square seems to have stopped.

For now, it is the only place where the demonstrators can feel more or less safe.

The violence began when thousands of supporters of President Mubarak surged into the square early on Wednesday.

One anti-government protester told the BBC that the pro-Mubarak activists had initiated the fighting.

"They started throwing stones at us," the man, named as Zaccaria, said. "Then some of us started throwing stones at them and then we chased them out of the square. They returned once again with the horses and the whips and the thugs."

Opposition supporters say many in the pro-government camp were paid by the authorities to demonstrate, and allowed into the square by the troops surrounding it.

The two sides pelted each other with stones in running battles lasting for hours.

Egyptian troops refused to intervene, but fired into the air to try to disperse people.

Egyptian Health Minister Ahmed Sameh Farid told the Associated Press news agency a member of the security forces died when he fell off a bridge.

Two other people died from unspecified wounds in hospital, he added. It was not clear whether they were critics or supporters of Mr Mubarak.

As darkness fell, people were seen throwing chunks of concrete and petrol bombs from rooftops on to the protesters below.

The clashes later died down, although there were petrol bomb incidents into the night. "
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12351831