By NBC News and news services
CAIRO - Egyptian soldiers with batons charged into Tahrir Square on Saturday after fatal clashes nearby, prompting many demonstrators who have been camped there since last month to flee into side streets.
Shots were also fired in the air as the troops in riot gear pushed into the square following the eruption of a fire in the area around buildings associated with Egypt's upper house of parliament, a Reuters witness said. Troops were seen grabbing some people and beating them.
NBC News reported that protesters' tents had been set on fire. The military was confiscating cameras and attacking photographers and camera crews who had been reporting from the square, NBC said.
Eight people have been killed as clashes between troops and protesters in central Cairo spilled over into a second day, Egyptian state television reported.
It also said that 303 people had been wounded in the unrest in the capital, whose center has turned into a smoke-filled battleground in some of the most violent clashes since a popular uprising ousted President Hosni Mubarak last February.
Egypt's Dar al-Iftah, the body that issues Islamic fatwas (edicts), said one of its senior officials, Emad Effat, was among the dead, state news agency MENA said. He was shot in the chest after joining the protesters outside the Cabinet.
Clashes around government offices and parliament raged on after nightfall on Friday, with protesters throwing Molotov cocktails and stones at soldiers who used batons and what witnesses said appeared to be electric cattle prods.
The violence has sharpened tensions between the ruling army and its opponents, and clouded a parliamentary vote set to bring Islamists, long repressed by Mubarak, to the verge of power.
It first began late Thursday after soldiers stormed an anti-military protest camp outside the Cabinet building near Tahrir Square, expelling demonstrators demanding an end to military rule and an immediate transfer of power to a civilian authority. Witnesses said troops snatched a protester, taking him into the parliament building and beating him. The troops later moved in, burning protesters' tents.
Frustration with military
The military took over after longtime President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in a popular revolt in February. Rights groups and activists charge that the military is carrying on the practices of the old regime, including arresting and beating dissidents.
Many Egyptians have grown increasingly wary of the military and frustrated with its handling of the country's transition period, and many activists accuse it of trying to hang on to power.
Mustafa Ali, a protester who was wounded by pellet shot in clashes last month, on Saturday accused the ruling generals of instigating the violence to "find a justification to remain in power and divide up people into factions."
In a statement read on state TV Friday night, the ruling military said its forces did not intend to break up the protest and said officers showed self-restraint, denying the used any gunfire. It said the clashes began when a military officer was attacked while on duty and protesters tried to break into the parliament compound.
The young activists who led the protests against Mubarak have not translated that success into results at the polls, where Islamist parties won a clear majority of seats in the first round of voting last month over the more liberal parties that emerged from the uprising. Results from this week's second round are expected in the coming days, with the rest of the country set to vote next month.
Images of troops protecting polling centers and soldiers carrying the elderly to the polls have served to boost the military's image as guardians of the country. The military remains the ultimate authority on all matters of state in absence of a president.
The second round of voting took place Wednesday and Thursday in nine of the country's 27 provinces. It covered vast rural areas where the religious stand of Islamist parties has strong support.
More from msnbc.com and NBC News:
NBC News, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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