Egyptian security forces hold back on ending pro-Mursi protests
Protesters demand reinstatement of ousted Egyptian president
Egyptian security forces held off yesterday from launching operations to disperse Islamist supporters of deposed President Mohammed Mursi that officials had said would start at dawn.
Security sources and a government official had said police would take initial action against Muslim Brotherhood sit-ins in two areas of Cairo early in the morning to end a six-week street stand-off between crowds demanding Mursi's reinstatement after the army toppled him on July 3.
It was not clear when police would start a risky and potentially bloody confrontation with thousands of supporters of Egypt's first democratically elected president.
With over 250 people killed since Mursi was overthrown and detained, the authorities say they are eager to avoid greater bloodshed.
The dispersal of the sit-ins will be "gradual", with protesters given "several warnings" before police move in, senior security officials said.
"There will be a series of gradual steps. We will announce every step along the way," an interior ministry general said.
Another security source said action against the protesters had been delayed because larger crowds had arrived at the protest camps after news broke that a crackdown was imminent.
Western and Arab envoys and some senior Egyptian government officials have been pressing the army to avoid using force in any attempt to lance a crisis that has festered for weeks in the deeply divided Arab country of 84 million people.
Army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who ousted Mursi, has come under pressure from hardline military officers to break up the Brotherhood sit-ins in the capital, security sources say.
There is deepening alarm in the West over the course taken by Egypt, which sits astride the Suez Canal and receives US$1.5 billion a year in mainly military aid from the United States.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
