CAIRO -- The Government boosted troop security in Cairo streets on Thursday as the police launched a large-scale manhunt for unidentified thugs accused of setting fire to a number of phone shops in bloody clashes that broke out in Abul Aziz Street in central Cairo on Wednesday night, officials said. The move also came following a mass escape of convicts from el- Talibiya Police Station in Giza as well as large scale fist fight between in-mates and guards in Tora Prison, also on Tuesday night, the officials said. The remarks came amid stepped-up rhetoric by the Interior Ministry, reflecting the Cairo residents' growing frustration in the wake of a security chaos that has gripped the nation the since January 25 revolution. The police and Army troops were deployed on Abdul Aziz Street, popularly known as the Mobile Depot, after 60 people were injured in clashes between shop owners and unlicensed vendors, the officials said. They said prosecutors ordered the arrest of the attackers after taking the testimony of the 60 persons who were hurt in the clashes in which hundreds of people from both fought with sticks and hurled bricks and firebombs at one another. Four policemen, including the commander of el-Moski Police Station, were among the injured in the four-hour clashes in which the men attacked each other with with iron rods, stones, home-made fire bombs and firearms, they added. "More than 60 people have been hurt during the clashes," the officials said, adding that at ten mobile shops were damaged by fire. However, an eyewitness denied the officials' stories saying that the clashes broke out after some children were playing outside the shops and the owners dispersed them by force. "The children called in their fathers and male family members, who chided the shop owners for using force against the kids," the eye witness, who asked not to be identified, said. Hundreds of the angry men headed towards the shops and started pelting them with stones and home-made firebombs, the eye witness said. "This was just the beginning of a huge clash between the angry parents, who were carrying weapons and firebombs, and the shop owners," he said, adding that a police contingent has failed to contain the explosive situation. Also, on Wednesday night security forces in Giza thwarted a bid by a score of detainees to escape from el-Talibiya Police Station after setting the detention room on fire and breaking open its gate, official sources said. A spokesman for the interior ministry confirmed that the gate of the detention room had been damaged. "But the station's officers and guards prevented the detainees from running away," the spokesman said. Meanwhile, the Ministry said that 11 prisoners were hurt in a commotion that broke out in Tora Prison on Wednesday nigh after a bloody fist fight broke out between two immates over a packet of cigarettes. Angry words ensued and blows quickly followed. "The two came to blows in a dispute over the cigarettes. An all-out fight between the in-mates ensued, resulting in eleven prisoners being hospitalised with bruises, loose teeth and broken ribs," a security official said.
