Egypt protesters besiege Cairo ministry

Protesters laid siege to Egypt's Interior Ministry on Friday, extending a rally against the military-led government into a second day in a show of anger triggered by the deaths of 74 people in the country's worst ever soccer disaster.

Several thousand demonstrators remained in the streets around the ministry in Cairo as night fell. For the most part, the only vehicles in the usually congested downtown area were ambulances that ferried away casualties from clashes with police.

Underlining the tension, ambulances had to intervene to extract riot police whose truck took a wrong turn into a street full of protesters, a witness said.

Protesters surrounded the vehicle for at least 45 minutes, rocking it while the police were inside. Some of the demonstrators then formed a human corridor to help them escape.

Close to 400 people were wounded in confrontations that erupted late on Thursday, the health ministry said, many of them suffering the effects of inhaling tear gas fired by riot police who the Interior Ministry said were protecting the building.

Rocks thrown by protesters were strewn across streets that two months ago witnessed lethal clashes between police and activists who see the Interior Ministry as an unreformed vestige of former president Hosni Mubarak's rule.

The latest protests were triggered by Wednesday's deaths at a soccer stadium in Port Said. Demonstrators who took to the streets on Thursday, many of them soccer fans, held the military-led authorities responsible for the bloodshed.

"We are not going to leave this time," said Sami Adel, a 23-year old member of the "Ultras," a group of football fans known for confronting police. They have regularly been on the front lines of clashes with security forces over the last year.

Security forces fired tear gas into the night to drive back protesters, who then regrouped ready for more. "The crimes committed against the revolutionary forces will not stop the revolution or scare the revolutionaries," said a pamphlet printed in the name of the Ultras that was being handed out.

The soccer stadium deaths have heaped new criticism on the military council, which has governed Egypt since Mubarak stepped down a year ago in the face of mass protests.

Their critics regard the generals as part of his administration and an obstacle to change.

The army leadership, in turn, has presented itself as the guardian of the "Jan. 25 revolution". It has promised to hand power to an elected president by the end of June.