Egypt protests: Police sprayed with water cannon in Cairo streets

Angry Egyptian demonstrators being targeted with water cannon retaliated by tuing one of the powerful hoses back onto the security forces.

Egyptian police were attempting to disperse the crowds protesting against the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak and the country's grinding poverty in the centre of Cairo.

But the crowd fought back.

It was a small victory against the security forces who have also used rubber bullets, batons and tear gas to try to control the protesters.

So far, three people - two protesters and one policeman - have been killed in the clashes and 250 others have been injured.

Thousands of demonstrators were back on the streets again today, despite a govement clampdown.

There were violent clashes between demonstrators and police as they fought pitched battles in Cairo.

Yesterday 20,000 demonstrators took to Cairo's main Tahrir (Liberation) Square. 

Mobilised largely on the inteet, the waves of protesters joined forces to hurl rocks and climb on top of armored police trucks.

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Defiant: It was a small victory against the security forces who have cracked down on the protesters with rubber bullets, batons and tear gas. Separately, a driver's door was forced open and he was ordered out of the truck

Pitched battles: Riot police walk past buing barricades on the streets of Cario after another day of protests against the govement

Crowds: Four people have died - including three demonstrators - since violence broke out

Egypt in flames: An overtued police vehicle bus in Cairo after being set on fire by protesters

'Down with Hosni Mubarak, down with the tyrant, we don't want you,' screamed the protesters as thousands of riot police were deployed in a massive security operation.

It is believed that the Egyptian president's son, who is considered as his successor, has fled to Britain along with his family.

The plane with Gamal Mubarak, his wife and daughter on board left for London yesterday from an airport in weste Cairo, the U.S. based Arabic website Akhbar al-Arab said.

As night fell yesterday, thousands of demonstrators stood their ground for what they vowed would be an all-night sit-in in the square just steps away from parliament and other govement buildings - blocking the streets and setting the stage for even more dramatic confrontations.

A large security force moved in around 1am today arresting people, chasing others into side streets and filling the square with clouds of tear gas. Protesters collapsed on the ground with breathing problems amid the heavy volleys of tear gas.

Batons raised: Protesters and police clash in a Cairo street as riots entered a second day

Taken away: Plainclothes police arrest Mohamed Abdul Quddus, a member of the Civil Liberties Committee and member of the Press Syndicate Council

Lines: The protests stem from fury at the levels of poverty in the country

The sound of what appeared to be automatic weapons fire could be heard as riot police and plainclothes officers chased several hundred protesters who scrambled onto the main road along the Nile in downtown Cairo.

Some 20 officers were seen brutally beating one protester with truncheons.

'It got broken up ugly with everything, shooting, water cannon and (police) running with the sticks,' said Gigi Ibrahim, who was among the last protesters to leave the square. 

'It was a field of tear gas. The square emptied out so fast.'

Ibrahim said she was hit in her back with something that felt like a rock. 'Some people were hit in their faces,' she said. 

 Some protesters tued violent amid the crackdown. They knocked down an empty white police booth and dragged it for several yards before setting it on fire, chanting that they wanted to oust the regime.

A police pickup truck was overtued and set ablaze behind the famous Egyptian Museum. Protesters also set fire to a metal barricade and blocked traffic on a major bridge over the Nile.

Angry: An Egyptian woman wrapped in the national flag protests on the streets of Cairo

Drenching: A police water truck sprays the demonstrators in Cairo

The violent scenes were inspired by protests in Tunisia which overthrew the govement earlier this month 

Police at the bridge fired tear gas and protesters mounted a charge, forcing officers to retreat, though they quickly regrouped. Two protesters with bleeding head wounds were carried off in ambulances.

Well after midnight, the smell of tear gas drifted throughout central Cairo and riot police remained deployed in large numbers. Tahrir Square looked like a battlefield covered with rocks and debris. The gates of the ruling party headquarters near the square were smashed.

Nearly half of Egypt's 80 million people live under or just above the poverty line set by the United Nations at 2 dollars a day.

Poor quality education, health care and high unemployment have left large numbers deprived of basic needs.

Soon after the removal on January 14 of Tunisia's president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, all eyes focused on Egypt, with observers wondering if the dramatic events in the North African nation could spur unrest against another entrenched Arab regime.

Meanwhile, in Lebanon, a prime minster backed by pro-Iranian Hezbollah was appointed sparking angry street protests and fears the move would plunge the country into a new crisis.

Tear gas: A young man kicks back a canister which has been hurled by a riot policeman

Under attack: Police vehicles became targets for protesters

Chaotic: There have been similar scenes across the Middle East in the last few weeks

Billionaire businessman and former premier Najib Mikati, Hezbollah's chosen candidate, moved immediately to try and reassure the country declaring : 'My hand is extended to all Lebanese, Muslims and Christians, in order to build and not to destroy.'

But thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of major cities on what they also called a 'day of rage', accusing Hebzbollah of engineering the collapse of the previous unity govement of outgoing Premier Saad Hariri.

The vote caps the Shia organisation's steady rise over the past few decades from a resistance group fighting Israel to Lebanon's most powerful military and political force.The shift in the balance of power drew waings from the U.S. that its support for Lebanon could be in jeopardy, demonstrating the risks of inteational isolation if Hezbollah pushes too far.

 

Protesters roll an overtued police box into the middle of a bridge over the Nile river to make a barricade during the clashes