Clashes rock Cairo as opposition snub Morsi invite

CAIRO

Violence gripped Egypt for a fifth straight day on Monday as Egypt's main opposition bloc turned down an invitation to hold talks with President Mohamed Morsi and called instead for fresh mass protests.

A man was killed as police and protesters clashed in Cairo and lobbed rocks at each other on a bridge in an underpass leading to the capital's iconic Tahrir Square as tear gas hung heavily in the air.

The clashes continued sporadically throughout the day, witnesses said, accusing gunmen of opening fire on the demonstrators from rooftops.

"There are many people wounded by gunfire," Ahmad Doma, an activist at the scene, told AFP in the evening. He blamed the shootings on Muslim Brotherhood-linked militiamen.

A security source said two offices and nine soldiers were also injured in clashes around Tahrir Square, and that protesters torched two personnel carriers.

As the unrest showed no signs of abating, Egypt's Islamist-dominated Senate ratified a law that would grant the armed forces powers of arrest, a day after Morsi announced a crackdown.

Morsi, who hails from the Muslim Brotherhood, on Sunday declared a month-long state of emergency in Port Said, Suez and Ismailiya provinces where around 50 people were killed and hundreds wounded over the weekend.

He also slapped night-time curfews on the three provinces after attacks on police stations following death sentences passed on Saturday against 21 supporters of a Port Said football club over stadium violence last year that killed 74 people.

On Monday, hundreds of mourners marched in Port Said on a second day of funerals for those killed in the canal city.

And hundreds more took to the streets of the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, carrying Egyptian flags and chanting slogans against the Brotherhood, the official MENA news agency reported.

Although most of the bloodshed has focused on Port Said, the violence erupted on Thursday in Cairo on the eve of the second anniversary of the uprising that overthrew Hosni Mubarak, with police and protesters clashing.

Disgruntled Egyptians say the revolution failed to reach its goals of social justice.

Grappling with a deep economic crisis, the Arab world's most populous nation is also struggling to strike a balance between a leadership boasting the legitimacy of the ballot box and opponents who accuse it of betraying the revolution's goals.