Egypt Violence Rages into Third Day, 33 Dead

The death toll from clashes between protesters and police around the country over the past three days has climbed to 33, morgue officials told Agence France Presse on Monday.

The health ministry has confirmed 22 of the deaths.

Hundreds have also been injured during the protests that broke out in Cairo, Alexandria and the canal city of Suez.

Police have been locked in violent confrontations with protesters demanding the end of military rule, with numbers of demonstrators swelling Monday in Tahrir -- the symbolic heart of demonstrations that toppled Hosni Mubarak in February.

Hundreds have also been injured during the protests that broke out in Cairo, Alexandria and the canal city of Suez.

"War in the Square," read the headline of the state-owned al-Akhbar, while the liberal Wafd daily said "Egypt is sitting on a volcano."

The clashes first erupted on Saturday, a day after large crowds staged a peaceful anti-military mass rally at the square, resuming on Sunday and carrying through the night into Monday morning, witnesses and television footage showed.

Police and troops on Sunday seized the square only to be beaten back by protesters who retook it later, as had also happened on Saturday.

An Agence France Presse reporter said late on Sunday that on one street protesters were throwing stones and petrol bombs at military armored personnel carriers and riot police.

He said military police had responded with mostly shotgun fire and rubber bullets. When there was steady fire some protesters began to run while others chanted "Hold fast! Hold fast!" and "We won't leave!"

There were heavy clashes on side streets leading to the interior ministry as protesters chanted "The people want to topple the field marshal" -- Hussein Tantawi, Mubarak's long-time defense minister who heads the ruling military.

In the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, a funeral procession Sunday for one of the victims degenerated into clashes with the police who fired volleys of tear gas at mourners, state news agency MENA reported.

In the canal city of Suez, troops fired live rounds into the air to stop protesters from storming a police station in the city center, also on Sunday.

Protests also broke out in the central cities of Qena and Assiut, a security official said, adding that 55 people had been arrested nationwide.

Egypt's cabinet, which held crisis talks on Sunday for several hours before moving en masse to the headquarters of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) for another meeting, said in a statement that next week's parliamentary elections would go ahead.

The SCAF, in a statement read out on state television, said it "regretted" what was happening. It said it was committed to the elections timetable.

Earlier Mohsen al-Fangari, a member of the council, insisted the election would go ahead as planned and that the authorities were able to guarantee security.

"We will not give in to calls to delay the elections. The armed forces and the interior ministry are able to secure the polling stations," Fangari told a talk show on the Egyptian satellite channel al-Hayat.

Several prominent political figures and intellectuals, including former U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei, earlier issued a call for a delay to the legislative polls.

They submitted a new transition roadmap which would see an elected constituent assembly draft a constitution and then a presidential election would be held, followed by parliamentary polls.

Friday's rally, which grouped Islamist and secular activists, called on the military to hand power to a civilian government. It also demanded more control over the constitution the new parliament is to draft.

Protesters called for the withdrawal of a government document that proposes supra-constitutional principles, which could see the military maintain some control over the country's affairs and keep its budget from public scrutiny.

The military says it will hand over power after a presidential election, which has yet to be scheduled.