Anger on streets as Egypt protests enter third day

Cairo: Egyptian protestors torched another police post in Suez as prosecutor charged 40 with sedition.

Activists trying to oust Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak played cat-and-mouse with police on the streets into the early hours of Thursday, as unprecedented protests against his 30-year rule entered a third day.

According to a security official, at least 1,000 people have been detained around the country since the demonstrations started on Tuesday. An independent coalition of lawyers said at least 1,200 were detained.

They vowed on Thursday to step up the largest anti-government protests in Egypt in three decades, despite mass arrests and mammoth security following two days of street clashes.

At least three protesters and one policeman have died in clashes since they erupted on Tuesday. The protests, inspired by a popular revolt in Tunisia and unprecedented during Mubarak's rule, have seen police fire rubber bullets and tear gas at demonstrators throwing rocks and petrol bombs.

In central Cairo on Wednesday demonstrators burned tyres and hurled stones at police.

In Suez, protesters torched a government building.

Demonstrations continued well into the night. By the early hours of Thursday, smaller groups of protesters were still assembling in both cities and being chased off by police.

Prominent reform campaigner Mohammad Al Baradei, who lives in Vienna, will return to Egypt on Thursday, his brother said. Baradei, formerly head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog authority, is a vocal advocate of political change.

Protesters are promising to hold the biggest demonstrations yet on Friday after weekly prayers.

"Egypt's Muslims and Christians will go out to fight against corruption, unemployment and oppression and absence of freedom," wrote an activist on a Facebook page.

Protesters say they have seen demonstrators dragged away, beaten and shoved into police vans.