Police push back against Egyptian protests

The skirmishes started early in the afternoon, and soon, small fires illuminated large clashes under an overpass. Riot police officers using batons, tear gas, and rubber-coated bullets cleared busy avenues; other officers set upon fleeing protesters, beating them with bamboo staves.

Egypt has an extensive and widely feared security apparatus, and it deployed its might in an effort to crush the protests. But it was not clear whether the security forces were succeeding in intimidating protesters or instead inciting them to further defiance.

In contrast to the thousands who marched through Cairo and other cities on Tuesday, the groups of protesters were relatively small. Armored troop carriers rumbled throughout Cairo’s downtown yesterday to the thud of tear-gas guns. There were signs that the crackdown was being carefully calibrated, with security forces using their cudgels and sometimes throwing rocks, rather than opening fire.

But again and again, despite the efforts of the police, the protesters in Cairo regrouped and at one point even forced security officers, sitting in the safety of two troop carriers, to retreat.

“This is do or die,’’ said Mustafa Youssef, 22, a student who marched from skirmish to skirmish with friends, including one nursing a rubber-bullet wound. “The most important thing to do is to keep confronting them.’’

Late yesterday, Reuters reported, protesters in Suez set a government building on fire, according to security officials and witnesses; the fire spread through parts of the provincial administration office but was put out before the flames engulfed the entire building.

Dozens of protesters also threw gasoline bombs at the office of the ruling party in Suez, Reuters reported, but they did not set it on fire. Police officers fired tear gas to push back the demonstrators.

Elsewhere, the authorities had better success smothering the unrest. A significant police presence in Alexandria, where protesters tore down a large portrait of Mubarak on Tuesday, managed to contain demonstrations quickly when they began yesterday. Several dozen young men tried to gather on the Corniche, a boulevard along the Mediterranean, but the gathering was quickly broken up by more than 100 police officers in riot gear assisted by plainclothes security personnel. Baton-wielding officers arrested several protesters as the rest scattered.

In the poor Alexandria neighborhood of Abu Suleiman, a demonstration lasted for more than half an hour before it was shut down by the police. Nearly 100 people wended their way through narrow back streets, chanting, “Come down, come down, Egyptians,’’ to neighbors, who peered down on them from windows on the higher floors.

The Associated Press, quoting witnesses, reported that riot police officers with batons attacked about 100 protesters in the central Egyptian city of Asyut, arresting nearly half of them.

The government said about 800 people had been arrested throughout the country since Tuesday morning, but human rights groups said there had been more than 2,000 arrests.

Abroad, there were growing expressions of concern from Egypt’s allies.

The US ambassador in Cairo, Margaret Scobey, called on the government “to allow peaceful public demonstrations.’’

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called on Egypt to adopt broad reforms and not crack down on the crowds, Associated Press reported.

She urged the Mubarak regime to “take this opportunity to implement political, economic, and social reforms that will answer the legitimate interests of the Egyptian people.’’

The German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle told reporters, “We are very worried about how the situation in Egypt is developing.’’

But despite signs that the protests were taking a domestic toll — the country’s benchmark stock index fell more than 6 percent — Egyptian officials, at least publicly, were mostly dismissive.

Mubarak’s National Democratic Party reiterated the government’s assertion that the protests were engineered by the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition movement.