Cairo.– Egypt was engulfed in a fifth day of protests on Saturday, but an attempt by President Hosni Mubarak to salvage his 30–year rule by firing his cabinet and calling out the army appeared to backfire as troops and demonstrators fraternized and called for the president himself to resign.

Tens of thousands of protesters once again defied President Hosni Mubarak’s curfews and threats of a harsh crackdown, taking to the streets for a fifth day as the Egyptian leader struggled to hold on to the power that he has maintained in nearly 30 years of authoritarian rule.

State television announced that he had named Omar Suleiman, his right–hand man and the country’s intelligence chief, as his vice president. Until now, Mr. Mubarak, who was vice president when he took power after the assassination of President Anwar el–Sadat, has steadfastly refused to name any successor, and the move stirred speculation that he was planning to resign.

His grip on power was further challenged Saturday as the military that he had deployed to take back control of the streets showed few signs of suppressing the unrest, and in several cases the army took the side of the protesters in the capital and the northern port city of Alexandria.

His grip on power was further challenged Saturday as the military that he had deployed to take back control of the streets showed few signs of suppressing the unrest, and in several cases the army took the side of the protesters in the capital and the northern port city of Alexandria.

In the most striking instance, members of the army joined with a crowd of thousands of protesters in a pitched battle against Egyptian security police officers defending the Interior Ministry on Saturday afternoon.

Protesters crouched behind armored trucks as they advanced on the ministry building, hurling rocks and a few Molotov cocktails and setting abandoned cars on fire. But the soldiers providing cover for the advancing protesters refused their pleas to open fire on the security police, while the police defending the ministry battered the protesters with tear gas, buckshot and rubber bullets. There were pools of blood in the streets as protesters carried a number of wounded back out of their ranks.

In other parts of the capital, soldiers invited protesters to climb aboard their armored personnel carriers to have their pictures taken, and in Alexandria, demonstrators took tea to troops.

The loyalty of the military — the country’s most popular and respected institution — will be crucial to determining whether Mr. Mubarak can remain as the president of his country, a leader in the Arab world and perhaps America and Israel’s closest ally in the region. A change in leadership here would threaten to upend the established order throughout the Middle East.

The late–afternoon confrontation followed a night of rampant looting around Cairo and then an extraordinary day of peaceful celebration in central squares of the city. The brigades of security police officers who battled hundreds of thousands of protesters on Friday had withdrawn from most of the city, many pulling back to positions defending core government buildings and Mr. Mubarak’s presidential palace.

One crowd cheered and chanted, “The army and the people will purify the country.” And jubilant crowds marched with their fists in the air, many of them carrying Egyptian flags.

By midday Saturday, young civilians were trying to fill gaps left by the police, directing traffic and in some cases defending their neighborhoods with clubs and other makeshift weapons.

Mr. Mubarak, however, appeared to push back, imposing a new curfew of 4 p.m. — which protesters defied — and state television warned that the police would shoot violators on sight.

Although cellphone service was restored in much of the country, the government appeared to still be blocking or restricting the Internet in an attempt to keep protesters from using social networking sites to communicate. The leaders of the early demonstrators, many of them young, used those sites to organize their protests, successfully evading Mr. Mubarak’s efficient security apparatus, which has for years co–opted opposition leaders it could and jailed those it could not.

The role of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist opposition group, remained unclear. The group had initially declined to take part in the protests, which started Tuesday, saying the holiday — Police Day — was a time for Egyptians to come together. But as the protests grew, the group was scrambling to get its own people out on the streets.

Before the street fights late Saturday, government officials had acknowledged more than 40 deaths around Cairo, plus 27 in Alexandria, 12 in Suez and more fatalities in a handful in other cities. Officials said that as many as 1,000 had been injured. But the final death toll was expected to be much higher. One doctor in a crowd of protesters said his Cairo hospital alone had seen 23 people dead from bullet wounds, and he showed digital photographs of the victims.

In Alexandria, where some of bloodiest clashes with the police took place, protesters’ positions appeared to be hardening, with at least some expressing anger at the United States.

“I’ve been in the streets from the 25th on, and I’m going to remain in the streets until Hosni Mubarak and his friends leave the country,” said Marwat Saleh, 43, who owns a small tourism company.

“It would have been better if he had not given his speech yesterday, because it seems he did not understand our demands,” she said. “We want him to step down, not only the government; he has to go.”

Mr. Mubarak’s speech just after midnight, in which he dismissed his cabinet, was mainly a defense of his government and the imperative to maintain stability.

Protesters in the city also voiced significant anger at the United States, rushing up to American reporters on the streets unprompted to ask why the United States continued to back the Egyptian government.

“We are very disillusioned by President Obama’s speech,” said Muhammad Shafai, 35, a lawyer, who called for Mr. Obama to distance himself from Mr. Mubarak.

In his speech Friday night, Mr. Obama took on a stern tone, saying he had personally told Mr. Mubarak that he needed to listen to his people’s demands for a “better democracy.” But the United States has counted on Egypt for help in the region, whether supporting American moves in Iraq or trying to defuse tensions between the Palestinians and Israelis.

In Sinai, officials said that the security police had withdrawn from broad portions of the territory, leaving armed Bedouin in control. At least five members of the police, both law enforcement and state security, were killed, officials said.

In Cairo, there were some ominous signs of a breakdown in order, with scattered reports of rampant looting and gangs of young men commandeering cars and smashing store windows.

The army moved to secure Cairo International Airport on Saturday as The Associated Press reported that as many as 2,000 people had flocked there in a frantic attempt to leave the country. International carriers reported delays and cancellations.

But by Saturday night, much of Cairo — including the upscale neighborhood of Zamalek — was in the control of young civilians armed with clubs and bats. They said they were armed to deter looters and protect their neighborhoods, and they stopped cars and detained passers–by, ostensibly for breaking the curfew. Gunfire was heard around the city and some suburbs.

(*) Kareem Fahim, Mona El–Naggar and Scott Nelson contributed reporting.

Egyptians Clash With Police as Military Holds Back

Military Does Little to Quash Protests

Cairo — As President Hosni Mubarak struggled to maintain a tenuous hold on power and the Egyptian military reinforced strategic points in the capital with tanks and armored vehicles, the United States said on Sunday it was offering evacuation flights for American citizens, including diplomatic dependents and non–essential staff.

The announcement injected a new note of alarm among Egypt’s allies as the uprising entered a sixth day of uncertainty. Police have largely withdrawn from the country’s major cities and the military has done nothing to hold back tens of thousands of demonstrators defying a curfew to call for an end to Mr. Mubarak’s nearly 30 years of authoritarian rule.

On Sunday, Turkey also said it was sending three flights to evacuate 750 of its citizens from Cairo and Alexandria. France, Britain and Germany issued a joint statement urging President Mubarak to show restraint — but not calling directly for the ouster of an autocratic leader who has cast himself as a lynchpin of Western diplomatic and security interests in the Middle East.

Reuters quoted a statement from the American Embassy here to “inform U.S. citizens in Egypt who wish to depart that the Department of State is making arrangements to provide transportation to safehaven locations in Europe.”

“Flights to evacuation points will begin departing Egypt on Monday, Jan. 31,” the statement said. American Embassy declined to confirm the wording of the statement, but said the Obama administration had authorized the “voluntary repatriation” of American citizens including diplomats’ dependents and some employees, meaning they could choose to leave if they wished.

With the situation on the ground still fluid, soldiers appeared to have thrown up new roadblocks, turning back cars as Egyptians on foot filtered back into the city center following the end of the overnight curfew. Before dawn, around 50 tanks and other armored vehicles rolled into the upmarket suburb of Heliopolis, near the airport and close to President Mubarak’s home, and there seemed to be a renewed effort to tighten controls on the flow of news.

In another part of Cairo, witnesses reported seeing around 100 tanks and armored personnel carriers gathered for deployment in the same parade ground where the former President Anwar al–Sadat, who made the Camp David peace agreement with Israel in 1979, was assassinated in 1981. At that time, Mr. Mubarak was Vice President.

Sunday is usually the start of the working week here but banks schools and the stock market remained closed in a city paralyzed by the uprising, scarred by looting and braced for further protests. Some Cairenes said gas stations were running out of fuel and many automated cash machines had either run out of money or had been looted. Many protesters could still be seen in the area around the central Tahrir, or Independence, Square.

State television said Al Jazeera, the Qatar–based satellite broadcaster whose coverage of the turmoil in the Arab world has spread word of protests from capital to capital, was being taken off the air in Egypt. But, initially at least, the station continued to broadcast. Earlier, its Arabic channel had proclaimed: “Egypt speaks for itself.”

Apparently concerned about the potential spread of unrest, Egypt closed its border with the Palestinian coastal enclave of Gaza, Paletinian authorities said.

As street protests flared for a fifth day on Saturday, Mr. Mubarak fired his cabinet and appointed Omar Suleiman, his right–hand man and the country’s intelligence chief, as vice president. Mr. Mubarak, who was vice president himself when he took power after the assassination of President Anwar el–Sadat, had until now steadfastly refused pressure to name any successor, so the move stirred speculation that he was planning to resign.

That, in turn, raised the prospect of an unpredictable handover of power in a country that is a pivotal American ally — a fear that administration officials say factored into President Obama’s calculus not to push for Mr. Mubarak’s resignation, at least for now.

The appointments of two former generals — Mr. Suleiman and Ahmed Shafik, who was named prime minister — also signaled the central role the armed forces will play in shaping the outcome of the unrest. But even though the military is widely popular with the public, there was no sign that the government shakeup would placate protesters, who added anti–Suleiman slogans to their demands.

On Saturday, Mohamed ElBaradei, the Noble laureate and a leading critic of the government, told Al Jazeera that Mr. Mubarak should step down immediately so that a new “national unity government” could take over, though he offered no details about its makeup.

But, among more affluent Egyptians, some said the country needed stability more than upheaval. After night when men took to the streets armed with broom sticks and kitchen knives to defend their home against looters in Heliopolis, one resident, Sarah Elyashy, 33, said: “It has been the longest night of my life.”

“I wish we could be like the United States with our own democracy, but we can’t,” she said. “We have to have a ruler with an iron hand.”

Control of the streets, meanwhile, cycled through a dizzying succession of stages.

After an all–out war against hundreds of thousands of protesters who flooded the streets on Friday night, the legions of black–clad security police officers — a reviled paramilitary force focused on upholding the state — withdrew from the biggest cities.

Looters smashed store windows and ravaged shopping malls as police stations and the national party headquarters burned through the night. Two mummies were destroyed in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum, the country’s chief antiquities official said. Then thousands of army troops stepped in late Friday to reinforce the police. By Saturday morning, a sense of celebration took over the central squares of the capital as at least some members of the military encouraged the protesters instead of cracking down on them.

It was unclear whether the soldiers in the streets were operating without orders or in defiance of them. But their displays of support for the protesters were conspicuous throughout the capital. In the most striking example, four armored military vehicles moved at the front of a crowd of thousands of protesters in a pitched battle against the Egyptian security police defending the Interior Ministry.

But the soldiers refused protesters’ pleas to open fire on the security police. And the police battered the protesters with tear gas, shotguns and rubber bullets. There were pools of blood in the streets, and protesters carried at least a dozen wounded from the front line of the clashes.

Everywhere in Cairo, soldiers and protesters hugged or snapped pictures together on top of military tanks. With the soldiers’ consent, protesters scrawled graffiti denouncing Mr. Mubarak on many of the tanks. “This is the revolution of all the people,” read a common slogan. “No, no, Mubarak” was another.

One camouflage–clad soldier shouted through a megaphone from the top of a tank: “I don’t care what happens, but you are the ones who are going to make the change!”

By Saturday night, informal brigades of mostly young men armed with bats, kitchen knives and other makeshift weapons had taken control, setting up checkpoints around the city.

Some speculated that the sudden withdrawal of the police from the cities — even some museums and embassies in Cairo were left unguarded — was intended to create chaos that could justify a crackdown. And reports of widespread looting and violence did return late Saturday night, dominating the state–controlled news media.

“How come there is no security at all?” asked Mohamed Salmawy, president of the Egyptian Writers Union. “It is very fishy that the police had decided to leave the country completely to the thugs and angry mobs.”

The Mubarak government may have considered its security police more reliable than the military, where service is compulsory for all Egyptian men. While soldiers occupied central squares, a heavy deployment of security police officers remained guarding several closed–off blocks around Mr. Mubarak’s presidential palace.

Before the street fights late Saturday, government officials had acknowledged more than 70 deaths in the unrest, with 40 around Cairo. But the final death toll is likely to be much higher. One doctor in a crowd of protesters said the staff at his Cairo hospital alone had seen 23 people dead from bullet wounds, and he showed digital photographs of the victims.

There were ominous signs of lawlessness Saturday in places where the police had abandoned their posts.

In the northern port city of Alexandria, some residents were unnerved by the young men on patrol.

“We’re Egyptians. We’re real men,” said a shopkeeper, brandishing a machete. “We can protect ourselves.”

Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director of Human Rights Watch, said that he observed a group of soldiers completely surrounded by people asking for help in protecting their neighborhoods. The army told them that they would have to take care of their own neighborhoods and that there might be reinforcements Sunday.

“Egypt has been a police state for 30 years. For the police to suddenly disappear from the streets is a shocking experience,” Mr. Bouckaert said.

State television also announced the arrest of an unspecified number of members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the outlawed Islamist group long considered the largest and best organized political group in Egypt, for “acts of theft and terrorism.”

It was unclear, however, what role the Brotherhood played in the protests or might play if Mr. Mubarak were toppled. There have been many signs of Brotherhood members marching and chanting in the crowds. But the throngs —mostly spontaneous — were so large that the Brotherhood’s members seemed far from dominant.

If Mr. Mubarak’s decision to pick a vice president aroused hopes of his exit, his choice of Mr. Suleiman did nothing to appease the crowds in the streets. Long trusted with most sensitive matters like the Israeli–Palestinian talks, Mr. Suleiman is well connected in both Washington and Tel Aviv. But he is also Mr. Mubarak’s closest aide, considered almost an alter ego, and the protesters’ negative reaction was immediate.

“Oh Mubarak, oh Suleiman, we have heard that before,” they chanted. “Neither Mubarak nor Suleiman — both are stooges of the Americans.”

Many of the protesters were critical of the United States and complained about American government support for Mr. Mubarak or expressed disappointment with President Obama. “I want to send a message to President Obama,” said Mohamed el–Mesry, a middle–aged professional. “I call on President Obama, at least in his statements, to be in solidarity with the Egyptian people and freedom, truly like he says.”

The unrest continued in other areas of Egypt and reverberated across the broader region..

In Sinai, officials said that the security police had withdrawn from broad portions of the territory, leaving armed Bedouins in control. At least five members of the police, both law enforcement and state security, were killed, officials said.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia blamed unnamed agitators for the demonstrations in Egypt. But in Yemen, dozens of protesters took to the streets of Sana in solidarity with Egyptian demonstrators, local media reported, following large antigovernment demonstrations last week.

The Egyptian government restored cellphone connections, turned off Friday morning in an apparent effort to thwart protesters’ coordination. But Internet access remained shut off Saturday.

The army moved to secure Cairo International Airport on Saturday. The Associated Press reported that as many as 2,000 people had flocked there in a frantic attempt to leave the country. Flights were available, but often rescheduled or canceled later in the day.

(*) David D. Kirkpatrick reported from Cairo and Alan Cowell from Paris. Kareem Fahim, Mona El–Naggar, Scott Nelson and Anthony Shadid contributed reporting from Cairo; Souad Mekhennet and Nicholas Kulish from Alexandria; Fares Akram from Gaza; Sebnem Arsu from Istanbul, Turkey.