According to Aljazeera, Egypt’s army has deployed tanks outside the presidential palace after a night of deadly clashes between opponents and supporters of President Mohamed Morsi.
Four tanks and three armored personnel carriers were stationed metres from the front gate of the palace in northern Cairo as hundreds of Morsi’s partisans chanted slogans in support of the president early on Thursday.
At least five people have been killed and over 440 people injured in the Egyptian capital as pro- and anti-government protesters clashed near the presidential palace on Wednesday evening, the health ministry said.
Fighting continued into the early morning on Thursday with fires burning in the streets where the opposing sides threw stones and petrol bombs at each other.
“No to dictatorship,” Morsi’s opponents chanted, while their rivals chanted: “Defending Morsi is defending Islam.”
Riot police were sent in to break up the violence on Wednesday, in which about 350 people were injured.
As of 11:20 last night, bloody clashes near the presidential palace were still on and off, gunshots heard intermittently, at least 126 injured in the bloody confrontations and unconfirmed reports of two deaths, while President Morsi and the presidential office have yet to comment on the ongoing turmoil.
Thousands of pro and anti-Morsi forces clashed into the night outside the presidential palace as the Egyptian opposition forces are saying the leader’s legitimacy is in “jeopardy,” Al Ahram reported. Two Morsi aides have resigned to protest the Muslim Brotherhood’s “narrow-mindedness.” Two Islamist Freedom and Justice Party buildings have been torched.