Egyptians clash at Muslim Brotherhood offices

CAIRO (AP) — Thousands of Egyptian protesters clashed with riot police and backers of the president's Muslim Brotherhood on Friday, ransacking several offices nationwide as anger over allegations of beatings and power-grabbing boiled over into the largest and most violent demonstrations yet on the doorstep of the powerful group.

As night fell, streets surrounding the Brotherhood headquarters were littered with shattered glass, charred vehicles, stones and gloves stained with blood. The number of injured reached nearly 100 from the two sides.

"We came to the stronghold of the Brotherhood. No more protests in front of the presidential palace because those ruling Egypt are here," said 50-year-old Hamat Awat, a female protester while running away from volleys of tear gas fired by black-clad riot police guarding the headquarters.

Anger erupted a week ago when Brotherhood members beat journalists and liberal and secular activists during a protest outside the group's Cairo headquarters. Journalists were there to cover a meeting. Protesters demand an apology, but the fundamentalist movement said its guards were provoked and acted in self-defense.

After smaller demonstrations since last weekend outside the headquarters, thousands of activists thronged to the building and battled Brotherhood supporters with birdshot, rocks, knives, sticks and their fists Friday. Gunshots were heard ringing in the neighborhood.

Three Brotherhood offices were ransacked by mobs in another Cairo neighborhood, in the second-largest city of Alexandria and in the Nile Delta city of Mahalla.

Egypt has faced near-constant turmoil in the more than two years since longtime, authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in a revolt. His successor Mohammed Morsi, the country's first democratically elected leader, has faced increasing frustration over what many see as attempts by his group to monopolize power and the slow pace of his efforts to reform the state and fulfill the revolution's promises of better living standards and justice.

Thousands of policemen, meanwhile, have gone on strike, refusing to confront protesters, and in some provinces, Egyptians have taken to vigilante violence and killings to fight crime. The unrest has badly hurt the economy, with foreign investors and tourists largely staying away, and a diesel crisis that has crippled life for millions.

Morsi's opponents — led by many of the activists who were at the forefront of the mass protests leading to Mubarak's ouster — charge that he has done little to improve the country in the nine months since he took office. They accuse the Brotherhood, which rose in power after years of repression under the former secular regime, of seeking to monopolize power, a charge the group denies.

The anti-Brotherhood protesters demanding the resignation of the attorney general and the interior minister, both presidential appointees. They also accuse the interior minister of authorizing security forces to use excessive force against protesters. More than 70 people have been killed in protests with police since Mohammed Ibrahim was appointed in January.

Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Yasser Mehres blamed opposition parties for calling Friday's protest outside the group's headquarters. He said it gave way for "thugs" to infiltrate and attack Brotherhood offices.

"Right now, Brotherhood buses are being burnt and there are serious injuries with people in critical condition," he said. "It is not acceptable that Egyptians watch TV and see this farce taking place as Egyptians fight one another."

Young men threw stones and wielded tree branches and broken bottles as they chanted against Morsi near the Brotherhood's headquarters in Cairo. One sign held aloft by a protester outside the headquarters read: "Who is ruling Egypt?"

Riot police stood guard around the building but initially didn't interfere to break up the two sides fighting a few blocks away. Later in the evening, the police fired volleys of tear gas at protesters who tried to approach the headquarters.

Black plumes of smoke billowed after protesters torched buses that had ferried Brotherhood members to the site, and security officials said at least 100 people were injured.

Fatima Khalifa, 30, said she was demonstrating to send a message to the Brotherhood that they are the aggressors.

"Morsi must be tried for killings of protesters just like Mubarak," she said.

The Brotherhood spokesman said the group's headquarters was the wrong place to demand change.

"The protesters' demands should be delivered to the government and president, not the Brotherhood office because even though the president came from the group, he makes decisions that are separate from the group," Mehres told The Associated Press.

In another Cairo neighborhood, young protesters broke into the Brotherhood party's office in Manial and stole some items, according to security officials.

In Alexandria, an AP cameraman saw protesters attack the Brotherhood party's office, leaving with computers, files and other objects. The attack took place near the site where unknown assailants fought protesters demanding the resignation of Morsi, who is a member of the party.

They also torched a Brotherhood office in the Nile Delta city of Mahalla, a security official said.

All security officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.

The scenes were reminiscent of clashes that took place late last year and left 10 people dead outside the presidential palace in Cairo between the two sides. More than a dozen Brotherhood offices were torched or ransacked at the time.

The opposition's demands are wide-ranging, including immediate cessation of violence against protesters and the amendment of articles in the constitution that was passed in a contentious referendum last year. They also want the formation of a more representative and inclusive Cabinet.

The clashes in Cairo erupted at a nearby square after a large pro-Brotherhood march approached the Brotherhood's main headquarters In the sprawling Cairo neighborhood of Muqattam. The protesters moved a few blocks away to Fountain Square after being hit with rocks from rooftops of nearby buildings. The square lies at the entrance of Muqattam, which overlooks the city.

An AP correspondent saw members of the anti-Brotherhood camp beating people in the crowd suspected of being members of the Islamist group.

The Brotherhood's website also reported the incident, characterizing the anti-Brotherhood side as "thugs" and "counter-revolutionaries".

Ahmed Abdel-Hai rushed one of the injured Brotherhood members to an ambulance.

He said the man was beaten after protesters allegedly saw him firing birdshot.

"Today will be a massacre," he said, as his hands and face were stained with blood from the wounded Brotherhood man, whose face and half naked body were covered with blood and bruises.

Several anti-Brotherhood protesters were also seen bloodied and being rushed to ambulances. Some covered their faces with black masks.

Anti-Brotherhood protester Hussein el-Sayyid said he saw three people with their faces slashed, suggesting some blades or knives were being used in the fighting.

"We are Egyptians eating one another when we should be one hand," he said.

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NATIONAL GUN FEVER SHOWS NO SIGN OF BREAKING

Apparently, there will be no ban on assault weapons.

Never mind that Adam Lanza used a Bushmaster AR-15 assault-type rifle to rip apart the bodies of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Forget the fact that James E. Holmes, the alleged Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooter, fired, among other weapons, an AR-15.

Nor does it seem to make any difference that Jared Loughner -- the man who shot Gabby Giffords and killed six others, including a 9-year-old girl -- used a high-capacity magazine that the Clinton-era assault-weapons ban rendered illegal. A high-capacity magazine also enabled the massacre committed by Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech.

The political climate has changed since the 1994 ban: Democrats have cowered before the gun lobby; the National Rifle Association has grown even more extreme; the U.S. Supreme Court has moved much further to the right. And, in the 20 years since Congress banned assault-type weapons and high-capacity magazines, Americans have heard a steady drumbeat of pro-firearms rhetoric that fetishizes the Second Amendment. In other words, the climate around firearms has gotten crazier.

Even before the current debate over more restrictive gun laws began, most political observers knew it would be difficult to get Congress to stand up to the firearms lobby. So it's no great surprise that Majority Leader Harry Reid, who runs from the shadow of the National Rifle Association, slammed the door on Sen. Dianne Feinstein's effort to re-up the assault-weapons ban.

Still, I find myself once again wondering just how bad things have to get before the fever breaks -- before the country comes to its senses on firearms. We're in the throes of a kind of madness, a mass delusion that assigns to firearms the significance of religious totems.

Many critics of an assault-weapons ban note that it would not provide any magical cure-all for the mass shootings that have plagued us over the years since Columbine. That's certainly true. But banning at least some assault-type weapons and the high-capacity magazines that feed them would be a step in the right direction. Why can't we take that step?

What would be wrong with reinstituting a ban? For 10 years -- from 1994-2004 -- an imperfect ban prohibited the sale of certain types of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. It covered only new weapons; old ones were grandfathered in, so those already in existence were available to criminals, the mentally unstable and the impulse-control-challenged. The original ban didn't prohibit easy modifications or cosmetic changes that allowed gun owners and manufactures to practically duplicate outlawed weapons. So the old law was hardly perfect.

But many law enforcement officials nevertheless supported it, declaring that it helped. It didn't end gun violence or stop mass murders or prevent suicides (which account for two-thirds of gun deaths in this country). But it prevented some killings. Isn't that worthwhile?

And the Clinton-era ban accomplished that without infringing on the rights of gun owners. They could still hunt game, protect their homes and enjoy firearms on gun ranges. The civilized world did not come to an end during those 10 years; the Second Amendment was not besmirched.

Yet, the vociferous -- nay, deranged -- leadership of the NRA has persuaded Congress that an assault-weapons ban is akin to totalitarianism. More important, it has persuaded Democrats that it has the power to end their political careers if they don't carry water for the gun lobby. After Al Gore's defeat in 2000, he and other Democrats blamed the loss partly on support for tougher gun laws. And the NRA was only too happy to take credit.

That was nonsense, of course. Gore won the popular vote and would have won the Electoral College, as well, if the ballots had been properly counted in Florida. Besides, he has only himself to blame for being a lousy candidate. But none of that seems to matter now because conventional wisdom has rewritten history.

If dead innocents -- their bodies ripped apart by bullets from an assault weapon -- couldn't persuade Congress to ban at least some of those firearms and the high-capacity magazines that feed them, the cause is lost. So is our common sense.

(Cynthia Tucker, winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, is a visiting professor at the University of Georgia. She can be reached at cynthia@cynthiatucker.com.)

Europe Has A Crisis — And It's Much Bigger Than Cyprus

In a way, Europe should be thrilled by the week that was because financial markets barely batted an eye at the crisis in Cyprus.

But Europe has a problem on its hands that's bigger than Cyprus: The economy stinks.

This week we got fresh proof that things are bad or getting worse.

In France, the Flash PMI report (which is a mid-month look at the combined services and manufacturing sectors of the economy) came in dismal, with the output index falling to a four year low.

Meanwhile, Germany's economy is the envy of Europe, but even they are not immune to trouble.

You can see its Flash PMI jutted lower this week as well.

Meanwhile, the horror show in Italy and Spain continues unabated.

This week, Danske Bank economist Frank Øland Hansen warned that France was beginning to look more like a peripheral country than a core one.

Not only is the economy sinking, but from a labor cost/competitiveness standpoint, it's looking PIIGSish.

Not only is the European economy a mess, and the second biggest country looking more and more peripheral, there isn't much action being taken to address any of it.

Cyprus hasn't made a dent in markets, and it might not. On the other hand, all of the above is a crisis.

• The Cyprus Government Is Getting Ready To Make A Statement...
  
• Angela Merkel Has A Brutal Message For Cyprus — But It's The Key For Getting A Deal
  
• REPORT: Major Cyprus Bank Has Only A Few Hours Of Liquidity Left, And Is Limiting Cash Withdrawals

Snowstorm takes aim at Plains, Midwest