Cairo violence ahead of dawn prayers

CAIRO, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- Angry soccer fans and tear gas-firing Cairo police fought in anti-junta violence early Friday before planned dawn prayers for 74 people killed in a soccer riot.

The prayers were to be followed by more protests and Jumu'ah noontime prayers -- followed by even more protests, Facebook postings and other protest calls reviewed by United Press International indicated.

The public's fury was echoed by a newly elected Parliament, many of whose members demanded Egypt's police and military be held accountable.

"Our revolution is in great danger," Speaker Mohammed al-Katatni warned.

The anti-regime protests -- with tens of thousands of mostly young men in Cairo, the largest gathering in downtown Cairo since the revolution that brought down President Hosni Mubarak a year ago -- spread to several other Egyptian cities by Thursday night.

Cairo demonstrators tore down the cement and barbed-wire barricades built recently to protect the Interior Ministry's vast security headquarters, the ministry said.

The ministry urged protesters "to listen to the sound of wisdom ... at these critical moments."

The crowds called for the fall of the ruling military council and for council Chairman Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the de facto head of state, to be hanged.

Many accused supporters of Mubarak, whose sons Gamal and Alaa had close ties to Egypt's soccer establishment, of deliberately instigating the Wednesday night violence at the stadium of the al-Masry soccer team following its 3-1 win over archrival Cairo's al-Ahly team.

Al-Ahly is one of Africa's most successful soccer teams, akin to England's Manchester United.

At least 74 people, mostly al-Ahly fans, were stabbed, beaten and crushed to death when extremist al-Masry fans invaded the soccer field at the end of the game and attacked the al-Ahly supporters with knives and metal bars, spectators said.

Some al-Masry fans tossed al-Ahly fans from 30-foot high stands, spectators said.

Survivors said the attack may have been government, police or Mubarak-crony revenge against al-Ahly supporters.

Die-hard al-Ahly fans, known as "ultras," played a key role in anti-Mubarak protests during the early days of the Egyptian revolution, helping beat back a group of mercenaries, some on horseback and camels, who attacked protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square a year ago.

In a move many activists point to as proof of an orchestrated police conspiracy, guards cut the stadium lights just as the violence began, and then closed the stadium's exit gates, penning in escaping fans from the visiting al-Ahly team, witnesses told The Wall Street Journal.

One al-Masry ultra told the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph: "The Ahly fans came from Cairo and began to insult the men here. They unfurled a banner criticizing us and threw insults at us. They provoked us, so we finished them."

The Interior Ministry said it interrogated more than 50 people suspected of instigating the clashes, including a dozen minors.

Tantawi, whose ruling council rejected criticism that implicated it in negligence, called for three days of national mourning, and accepted the resignation of the Port Said governor.

The government suspended the district's director of security and the chief of its detective unit. State media reported both men were later detained by police.

The Egyptian Football Association board resigned and the association suspended league play indefinitely.

Members of Parliament, meeting in emergency session, heckled and shouted down Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri, appointed by the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, as he addressed the chamber Thursday.

Lawmakers from the powerful Muslim Brotherhood, which enjoys a nearly 50 percent parliamentary plurality, rebuked Egypt's interim civilian government but did not chastise the military.

Egypt's previous worst soccer incident was in 1974, when 49 people were trampled to death at a match in Cairo.