STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Its MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
And I'm Renee Montagne.
In Cairo's Liberation Square today, Egypt's army moved to prevent violence, violence that turned it into a battle zone yesterday and through the night. This morning, tanks and troops took positions in Liberation Square to keep apart anti-Mubarak protesters and Mubarak supporters. Those supporters have been showing up armed with knives and iron bars and Molotov cocktails.
Egypt's prime minister said the attacks yesterday by supporters of the government were a, quote, "blatant mistake," and that the government would investigate.
NPR's Corey Flintoff in on the line from the Egyptian capital to talk to us about what's going on.
And Corey, tell us what's happening right now.
COREY FLINTOFF: Renee, the crowd in Tahrir Square has grown throughout the day. You know, there's chanting, there's there seems to be a renewal, you know, of determination after last night's fierce fighting. People that we talked to this morning said that they're prepared to stay, they're prepared to die, if necessary, to keep up this struggle.
At the same time, we've been seeing a sort of gathering presence of pro-Mubarak supporters, not as great in numbers as they were yesterday, but there are I've been watching a checkpoint here where pro-Mubarak supporters, some of them in groups of about 50 or so at a time, have been going through a checkpoint and they've been carrying boxes and bags. There's no way to tell exactly what they're bringing into the area, whether it's weapons or whether it's simply water and food for their demonstrators.
But it's almost all men and they are they're moving in what seems to be a very organized fashion.
So far there hasn't been a great deal of violence. We have reports of rock throwing skirmishes and some gasoline bombs being thrown. There have been occasional bursts of gunfire. It's hard to tell whether that's army warning shots or whether that's actually somebody firing at some part of the demonstration.
MONTAGNE: Well, let's talk about the protesters who've been there for days and days 10 days - the protesters against the government. What is the mood among them?
FLINTOFF: This morning, Renee, they were they were battered, they were tired, but they were absolutely determined. In the group in Tahrir Square in the morning, which had thinned out somewhat over the night, there were a lot of people with wounds of various kinds, a lot of people with bandaged heads and faces and things like that.
But you know, there seemed to be a great deal of determination, almost a feeling that they had won a moral victory by withstanding this tremendous onslaught yesterday.
MONTAGNE: Besides saying that it was a huge mistake for government supporters to really attack these protesters, besides saying that was a huge mistake, has the government taken any other steps in recent hours to appease the anti-government demonstrators?
FLINTOFF: Yes. The vice president came back on and he said it's Omar Suleiman and he said that President Hosni Mubarak's son would not be running for the presidency. And that was something that had long been assumed by people here, that he was being groomed for that job.
This announcement appears to put an absolute end to that, and that was something that the demonstrators absolutely insisted on, there wouldn't be a hereditary transfer of power.
MONTAGNE: What do you think will happen tomorrow, after Friday prayers?
FLINTOFF: Well, Renee, there's a lot of concern and fear here that Friday, you know, being the start of the Islamic weekend, will be a chance for new outbreaks of violence.
And the demonstrators, the anti-Mubarak demonstrators, have said that the government has had a pattern of using Fridays as an effort to crack down on any sort of opposition, an effort to organize and orchestrate violence, and this may be a possibility again.
MONTAGNE: Is anyone talking about this being a moment for the anti-government demonstrators to show one more time their strength and purpose?
FLINTOFF: Yes, I think it may well be. The fact that after this horrific violence last night, the crowd in Tahrir Square has grown - and believe me, from where I'm standing, I can see a mass, a sea of people in the square - it shows, I think, that, you know, this has rallied people and drawn them into the struggle.
There's also been a great deal of social media. Young people in the square have been texting and tweeting all day long, urging other people to come and support them in the square and add to their numbers.
So it may very well be a turning point tomorrow.
MONTAGNE: Corey, thanks very much.
FLINTOFF: Thank you, Renee. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.