Violence ends brief truce at Egypt protest

[FarCenter]

A brief attempt by Egypt's military to interpose a ceasefire between riot police and civilians near the epicentre of protests against military rule has disintegrated into another night of violence around Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Police from the interior ministry's Central Security Forces appeared to fire an unprovoked barrage of tear gas at a large crowd gathered on Mohamed Mahmoud Street on Wednesday afternoon, witnesses said, despite a truce that had settled in after the arrival of army vehicles and religious scholars.

"Protesters are on the front lines to stop the security forces from attacking the rest of us in Tahrir," Rebab el-Mahdy, a politics professor at the American University in Cairo, told Al Jazera.

"Interior ministry forces are out of control ... they're not being professional and they're not being controlled by the military council."

Ambulances raced back from Mohamed Mahmoud Street and other frontline battles south and east of the square throughout the night, ferrying dozens of protesters suffering from tear-gas inhalation.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/11/2011112318264965551.html