Egyptian troops moved into streets around the Interior Ministry in Cairo today, replacing riot police who had repeatedly clashed with protesters trying to reach the building, an army officer said. Riot police withdrew inside the ministry.
The removal of the widely hated police seemed to be part of efforts to calm violence that has killed more than 30 people and wounded 2,000 in Cairo and elsewhere in six days of protests targeting the ruling military council, not the army itself.
The Interior Ministry, near Tahrir Square, has been the main flashpoint for clashes in which police have fired tear gas, pellets and rubber bullets at stone-throwing demonstrators.
The protesters have derided an agreement forged yesterday by Egypt's ruling military council and mostly Islamist parties for a swifter transfer to civilian rule.
In another attempt to defuse tension, Sami Enan, the deputy head of the army council, said he was ready to meet youth activists driving the protests in Tahrir, state television said.
As dusk fell, thousands of people, many of them onlookers, had crowded into Tahrir, which was also the arena of protests which toppled President Hosni Mubarak on February 11th.
Vendors were selling everything from snacks to face masks for protection against wafting tear gas.
The overall death toll has reached 38 by a Reuters count after a man was killed in Alexandria and another died in what the state news agency Mena said was an attack on a police station in the northern town of Marsa Matrouh.
The Health Ministry said 32 people had been killed and 2,000 wounded in disturbances across the country of 80 million.
Field marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the military council that has run Egypt since Mubarak fell on February 11th, promised yesterday that a civilian president would be elected in June, about six months sooner than the army had planned.
"Leave, leave," responded crowds in Cairo's Tahrir Square. "The people want to topple the marshal."
The military had originally pledged to return to barracks within six months of Mubarak's removal. Its apparent reluctance to relinquish its power and privilege has fuelled frustration among Egyptians who feared their revolution had changed nothing.
Mr Tantawi, who was Mubarak's defence minister for two decades, adjusted the schedule after generals met politicians, including leaders of the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood, which is eager to turn decades of grassroots endeavour into electoral success.
A parliamentary election, billed as Egypt's first free vote in decades, will start on Monday as planned, he confirmed.
Voting for the upper and lower houses will only be completed in March under a staggered, complex process. Parliament will then pick an assembly to draw up a new constitution, an exercise which the Brotherhood and its rivals are keen to influence.
Mr Tantawi angered many youthful demonstrators in Tahrir Square and other cities by suggesting a referendum on whether military rule should end earlier, which they viewed as a ploy to appeal to the many Egyptians who fear further upheaval.
A referendum on temporary changes to the constitution made by the army won 77 per cent approval in April, when the generals were still widely popular for helping remove Mubarak.
The military has so far escaped direct public criticism from world governments, however, with many echoing the United States, which has deplored the violence and called for elections to go ahead.
But Human Rights Watch said yesterday the military "should immediately order riot police to stop using excessive force against protesters". Amnesty International accused the army of brutality sometimes exceeding that of the Mubarak era.
Mr Tantawi has promised a national salvation government to replace prime minister Essam Sharaf's cabinet, which resigned this week, but remains in a caretaker role.
Political uncertainty has battered Egypt's finances. Foreign reserves have tumbled to $22 billion in October from $36 billion in December, just before the anti-Mubarak uprising erupted.
Reuters