ANGRY protesters battling pro-regime militants for control of Cairo's Tahrir Square insisted yesterday that President Hosni Mubarak step down, spurning a talks offer by the new premier who said he was prepared to go and meet them.
Ahmed Shafiq, who publicly apologised for violence that has raged there for more than 24 hours, said he was "ready to go to Tahrir Square to talk to the protesters", state news agency MENA reported.
But a coalition of activists rejected what was a break with the regime's previous insistence that it would not talk with the opposition until protesters went home, and said they would not talk with Shafiq.
Amr Salah, a coalition representative, told AFP that those who had launched the call to protest last week "will not accept any dialogue with the regime until our principal demand is met, and that is for President Hosni Mubarak to step down".
Shafiq retorted by telling them that staying in the square would get them nowhere.
Undaunted by what they say has been a regime campaign of intimidation, the protesters say they will proceed with plans for a massive demonstration today, their designated "departure day" for the 82-year-old president.
Running battles in Tahrir Square, the focal point of the anti-Mubarak protests, broke out on Wednesday, raged through the night and were continuing sporadically more than 24 hours later.
The health ministry saying five people were killed and at least 836 hurt, while an AFP tally puts the death toll at seven.
More than 300 people have died since the unrest broke out on January 25 and close to 4,000 injured.
Shafiq offered his "apologies for what happened yesterday", saying on state television that "there will be an enquiry".
He later told journalists he was unsure whether the attacks had been organised, and lamented that he did not have enough police to provide security.
"I don't know if it was organised or spontaneous," he told a televised news conference. "There were clashes. And clashes between youths are always more heated. It seems they were carrying some weapons.
"Egyptian hearts are bleeding," he said. "It was a bloody night, with much damage."
Egypt's police disappeared from the streets on Friday night after two days of running street battles that caused most of the casualties so far.
"I do not have enough police," Shafiq said. "When the army moved in many of the riot police went back to their villages and we can't get them to come back."
Meanwhile, the public prosecutor said officials have been banned from travel and their accounts frozen pending investigation.
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