PHOTO: Pro-regime rally in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Saturday night
At least 49 people have been killed during anti-regime marches in Egypt on the third anniversary of the uprising that overthrew Hosni Mubarak.
Nearly 250 people were wounded during the demonstrations, according to the Health Ministry, while the Interior Ministry said 1,079 people were arrested.
In the Sinai Peninsula, four conscripts have been killed and nine injured in an attack.
The Islamist insurgency Ansar Beit al-Maqdis also claimed responsibility for downing a helicopter with a portable air defense system.
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In the capital, armoured personnel carriers were deployed and security forces threw tear gas and fired in the air to prevent anti-regime demonstrators from reaching Tahrir Square, the symbolic center of the 2011 uprising.
Demonstrators supporting the post-coup interim goverment had gathered in Tahrir. Some called for the head of the military, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, to run for the Presidency.
Anti-regime protesters marched in more than 30 neighborhoods and were confronted in several locations by security forces.
Meanwhile, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis claimed responsibility for four bombs in Cairo on Friday that killed at least eight people.
On Saturday, an explosion at a Suez police camp injured four people.
The Deputy Interior Minister said the blast was from a car bomb.
