CAIRO — Egypt's government disrupted Internet service and deployed an elite special operations counterterrorism force Friday, hours before anti-government protesters prepared for a new wave of mass rallies.
The developments were a sign that President Hosni Mubarak's regime was toughening its crackdown following the biggest protests in years against his nearly 30-year rule.
The police counterterrorism force is rarely seen on the streets. Its officers took up positions early Friday in strategic locations in Cairo, including central Tahrir Square, site of the biggest demonstrations earlier this week.
This week's grass-roots protest movement in Egypt has been fueled by traffic on social networking sites, but Internet outages have become widespread. A major service provider for Egypt, Italy-based Seabone, reported early Friday that there was no Internet traffic going into or out of the country after 12:30 a.m. local time. Mobile phone text messaging services also appeared to be partially disabled, working only sporadically. The government has denied disrupting communications networks.
A page on Facebook social networking site listed more than 30 mosques and churches where protesters were expected gather.
"Egypt's Muslims and Christians will go out to fight against corruption, unemployment and oppression and absence of freedom," the page said, adding more than 70,000 had signed up online.
In Cairo, some residents said they had no access to the Internet altogether, while others said disruptions were limited to social networking websites. Others said they were unable to send mobile text messages.
Karim Haggag, a spokesman for the Egyptian embassy in Washington, said the Egyptian prime minister's office had issued a statement denying Facebook and Twitter have been shut down.
The protest movement got a double boost Thursday — the return of Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei and the backing of the biggest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Violence escalated Thursday at protests outside the capital. In the flashpoint city of Suez, along the strategic Suez Canal, protesters torched a fire station and looted weapons that they then turned on police.
In the northern Sinai area of Sheik Zuweid, several hundred Bedouins and police exchanged gunfire, killing a 17-year-old man. About 300 protesters surrounded a police station from rooftops of nearby buildings and fired two RPGs at it, damaging the walls.
The 82-year-old Mubarak has not been seen in public or heard from since the protests began Tuesday with tens of thousands marching in Cairo and a string of other cities. While he may still have a chance to ride out this latest challenge, his choices are limited, and all are likely to lead to a loosening of his grip on power.
The United States, Mubarak's main Western backer, has been publicly counseling reform and an end to the use of violence against protesters, signs the Egyptian leader may no longer be enjoying Washington's full backing.
In an interview broadcast live on YouTube, President Barack Obama said the anti-government protests filling the streets show the frustrations of Egypt's citizens. "It is very important that people have mechanisms in order to express their grievances," Obama said.
Noting that Mubarak has been "an ally of ours on a lot of critical issues," Obama added: "I've always said to him that making sure that they're moving forward on reform, political reform and economic reform, is absolutely critical to the long-term well-being of Egypt."
"And you can see these pent-up frustrations that are being displayed on the streets," Obama said.
Vice President Joe Biden, in an interview Thursday with PBS NewsHour, said he does not consider Mubarak to be a dictator. But the "time has come for President Mubarak to begin to move in the direction of being more responsive to some of the needs of the people out there," he said.
In a move likely to help swell the numbers on the streets, the Muslim Brotherhood ended days of inaction to throw its support behind the demonstrations. On its website, the outlawed group said it would join "with all the national Egyptian forces, the Egyptian people, so that this coming Friday will be the general day of rage for the Egyptian nation."
For the Brotherhood, still smarting from their recent defeat in a parliamentary election marred by fraud, the protests offer a rare opportunity to seize on what is increasingly shaping up as the best shot at regime change since Mubarak came to office in 1981.
