Thousands of supporters and opponents of Egypt's new Islamist president clashed in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday, hurling stones and concrete and swinging sticks at each other in the first such violence since Mohammed Morsi took office more than three months ago. The melee erupted between two competing rallies in Tahrir. One was by liberal and secular activists to criticize Morsi's failure to achieve promises he had made for first 100 days in power, the other by members and supporters of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood. Once fighting began, the activists unleashed their anger against the Brotherhood, accusing it of taking over the country through Morsi, dominating the writing of the next constitution and failing to bring about the democratic change or economic reform called for in last year's uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak. "My conclusion here is that Morsi is just the president of the Brotherhood, that's all. We are back to square one," since Mubarak's fall, said Sayed al-Hawari, who carried a plank of wood as a shield against the volleys of stones. It was the first outright violence to break out between the two camps since Morsi — Egypt's first freely elected president — was inaugurated in late June.
