Mubarak defies calls to step down

CAIRO, Egypt - Embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Thursday he would not relinquish power until after the next presidential election in September.

In a nationally televised address, Mubarak seemed defiant in response to international pressure for him to step down immediately. He said he would "not take orders from abroad."

However, he did say he would hand over some of his powers to the current vice president Omar Suleiman.

Mubarak said he had requested six constitutional amendments, answering one of the demands of the protesters who have staged demonsrations for more than two weeks.

He said he would lift hated emergency laws when security permitted.

Mubarak also vowed to punish those behind violence over the past two weeks and offered condolences to the families of those killed.

Within minutes, protesters on the streets erupted in anger shouting, "Leave, leave, leave."

Protesters in Cairo's Tahrir square who had been expecting Mubarak to resign have erupted in anger -- resuming their shouts of "leave, leave, leave."

Earlier in the day, thousands more protesters lined up to enter a packed Tahrir Square in expectation Mubarak would announce he's stepping down.

Egypt's military announced it had stepped in to "safeguard the country" and assured protesters that Mubarak would meet their demands.

In Washington, the CIA chief said there was a "strong likelihood" Mubarak would step down Thursday.

The military's dramatic announcement showed that the military was taking control after 17 days of protests demanding Mubarak's immediate ouster spiralled out of control.

TV footage showed Defence Minster Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi chairing the military's supreme council, with two dozen top army officers, seated around a table.

Not at that meeting were Mubarak, the military commander in chief, or Suleiman, a former army general and intelligence chief named to his post after the protests erupted Jan. 25.

"All your demands will be met today," Gen. Hassan al-Roueini, military commander for the Cairo area, told thousands of protesters in central Tahrir Square.

The protesters lifted al-Roueini onto their shoulders and carried him around the square, shouting, "the army, the people one hand."

Some in the crowd held up their hands in V-for-victory signs, shouting "the people want the end of the regime" and "Allahu akbar," or "God is great," a victory cry used by secular and religious people alike.

But protesters also chanted, "civilian not military," a signal they do not want military rule. More people flowed into the square following the military announcement in the evening.

In the military's announcement on state TV, the council's spokesman read a statement announcing the military's "support of the legitimate demands of the people."

He said the council was in permanent session to explore "what measures and arrangements could be made to safeguard the nation, its achievements and the ambitions of its great people." That suggested Tantawi and his generals were in charge of the country.

The statement was labeled "Communique No. 1," language that also suggests a military coup.

The head of Mubarak's ruling party, Hossam Badrawi, told The Associated Press he expected Mubarak would "respond to protesters' demands" in his evening speech.

The moves came after protests Thursday increasingly spiralled out of the control of efforts led by Suleiman to contain the crisis.

Labor strikes erupted around the country in the past two days, showing that the Tahrir protests had tapped into the deep well of anger over economic woes, including inflation, unemployment, corruption, low wages and wide disparities between rich and poor.

In the past two days, state employees revolted against their directors, factories around the country were hit by strikes, riots broke out in several cities far from Cairo. Protesters angry over bread and housing shortages or low wages burned the offices of a governor and several police headquarters while police stood aside.

Professionals and workers began joining the crowds of anti-Mubarak protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

On Thursday, hundreds of lawyers in black robes broke through a police cordon and marched on one of Mubarak's palaces - the first time protesters had done so. The president was not in Abdeen Palace, several blocks from Tahrir. The lawyers pushed through a line of police, who did nothing to stop them.

Tens of thousands were massed in Tahrir itself, joined in the morning by striking doctors who marched in their white lab coats from a state hospital to the square and lawyers who broke with their pro-government union to join in.

"Now we're united in one goal. The sun of the people has risen and it will not set again," one of the lawyers, Said Bakri, said before the series of military announcements.