Anger as army removes protesters in Cairo

Cairo: Dozens of people were injured Friday in street clashes between army forces and anti-military protesters in central Cairo, according to medical sources and activists.

Health authorities said 36 protesters sustained injuries in the head and the face in the clashes in which stones were exchanged. However, activists said the figure was far higher.

The clashes, the first since the country's military rulers installed a new government in late November, erupted early Friday after protesters accused the army forces, guarding the cabinet headquarters, of abudcting and attacking one protester.

The protesters hurled stones at the military personnel who shot in the air and removed the demonstrators from outside the cabinet building near Tahrir Square where they had camped since late November,reported state television.

The angry priotesters blocked the nearby Qasr Al Eini Street, but were forced to retereat towards Tahrir Square, said witnesses. The army forces chased after the protesters in side streets and detained some of them, added the witnesses.

Egyptian television showed people wearing plain clothes on the rooftop of the nearby parliament building throwing stones at the protesters who shouted slogans against the military junta.

A governmental building and parked cars caught fire during the clashes, added the witnesses.

The protesters have camped outside the cabinet headquarters since late November in opposition of the military rulers' appointment of Kamal Al Ganzouri, who served under former president Hosni Mubarak, as the country's new prime minister.

They regard Al Ganzouri, a veteran economy expert, as an extension of the Mubarak regime that was deposed in a popular uprising in February.

Protesting the use of violence against the protesters, political activist Ahmed Khayri and Moetz Abdel Fatah, a political science professor, said they would quit a civilian advisory council created by the military rulers earlier this month.

"I am resigning and others may follow me in protest against this unjustified violence by the military police against peaceful protesters," Abdel Fatah wrote on his Facebook account.

Forty-five people were killed last month in five-day clashes between security forces and anti-military protesters in Tahrir Square, an epicentre of a popular revolt that unseated long-standing president Hosni Mubarak in February.