Battle Rages in Streets of Cairo

Protesters clashed violently with security forces for the fifth straight day today, angrily rejecting the military’s promise to bump up its handover to civilian authorities to next July. Protesters swarmed around the infamous Interior Ministry building, in what they said was an attempt to pin down the police and army and prevent them from ousting protesters from Tahrir Square, the Wall Street Journal reports. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd to stop them from storming the building.

“As soon as daylight broke they started shooting, because they could see us,” one protester tells Reuters. At least 38 people have been killed since Saturday, one rights group said today, while the Health Ministry raised its total to 32. One doctor in a Tahrir Square field hospital told the AP that three more bodies arrived today—all with bullet wounds. He added, however, that the wounds may not be from live ammunition, but from close-range rubber bullet shots.