Down but not out: revived Tahrir protests rage on

The Egyptian army forcefully regained control of Cairo's main square from protesters yesterday but angry youths returned at night for one more round

At 8pm as Cairo's Muslim residents finished their first Iftar, the meal that breaks the daylong Ramadan fast, Egypt's military police seemed to have regained control of Tahrir Square from the protesters who had occupied it for 22 days.
Earlier on Monday, hundreds of military police, central security force officers and plainclothes police forcefully evicted hundreds of protesters and tore down their remaining tents, engaging in pitched battles that started around 2pm and raged for several hours.
With the sit-in dispersed, the army seems to have more than one reason to celebrate.
The ruling military council had undertook a vicious three-week-long campaign to smear and isolate the revolutionary groups, such as the 6th of April Movement, who were occupying the square. Protesters found themselves accused of all manner of activities, from receiving money to protest from foreigners, to disrupting local businesses and ruining the economy.
The military council's campaign succeeded, or so it seemed. By the time the crackdown came, the generals appear to have convinced a growing majority of Cairenes -- both those for and against the sit-in -- that the protesters must leave the square or at least suspend their demonstrations.
When the army finally reopened the square to traffic, dozens of taxi-drivers and other citizens congratulated the military officers present on Tahrir; some gave the thumbs-up, others literally embraced them.
But these weren't the only reactions. To the army's surprise those evicted from Tahrir staged a revival of their protest, with groups of angry, revolutionary youth and the supporters of martyrs' families gathering on the fringes of downtown. Numbering in their dozens, the protesters who had been kicked out just hours before pushed their way back to Tahrir.
Indeed several dozen of the youth never left the square to begin with. Some of those remaining organised a mass Iftar in the Omar Makram mosque then held taraweeh, the post-Iftar prayers.
Many protesters and ordinary citizens chose Omar Makram to gather to show their anger at events earlier in the day when army and police chased protesters into the mosque while still wearing their boots, desecrating the site according to Islamic custom.
As the evening rolled on, military police units spread across the square and armoured personnel carriers from Central State Security tried to block the entrances and fend off the new wave of demonstrators.
Protesters left the Makram mosque after prayers at around 10pm, congregating in the square when they began chants against the Supreme Council of Armed Forces.
"Down, down with military rule” and “down, down with Hosni Mubarak," they shouted.
At around 12 am, 500 other youths began a march from the Supreme Court in downtown Cairo to Tahrir and succeeded in breaking through police and army lines.
At this point army officers, seemingly caught off guard by the return of demonstrators, ordered military police to physically block Tahrir's central island, a hub for the sit-ins, to prevent protesters from reoccupying it.
In a move to calm the situation, the army also ordered the majority of central security officers -- a potent symbol of Mubarak-era repression -- off the square and into the surrounding side streets. Protesters made sure to pelt the departing big bulky, Grey vehicles with water bottles as they sped out of the square.
For the following hours protesters marched around the square, chanting pro-revolution songs but making sure not to block traffic."The army and the police are one dirty hand," was one of the chants with which they taunted officers, referring to the increasing cooperation between the
two agencies when it comes to cracking down on protests.
As dawn neared it seemed that both sides, army and protesters, were just holding their positions with neither interested in another confrontation. By 2am central security soldiers and some military police gathered to eat sohour, the last meal before the day's fasting begins.
Central security soldiers spread on the pavements on the streets leading from Tahrir, eating fuul (mashed fava beans) and bread -- a high-protein, working-class staple that keeps one full for hours.
It was a welcome refuelling after hours of attacking protesters and before a new day that could bring yet more unwanted work.