On the eve of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, millions of Egyptians March today

CAIRO (Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - A sea of protesters flooded downtown Cairo on Monday, brushing aside concessions by President Hosni Mubarak and vowing to topple his regime with strikes and million-strong marches in the capital and Alexandria, AFP reported.

In what is seen as a sop to the protesters, a new cabinet line-up was announced in which widely hated interior minister Habib al-Adly and the previous finance and culture ministers were axed.

But protesters massed in downtown Cairo vowed they would only be satisfied when Mubarak quits, and promised to step up their efforts to bring down his creaking regime.

Organizers announced an indefinite general strike and said Tuesday would see a “march of a million” in the capital after a week of revolt in which at least 125 people have been killed.

Another march was called in the Mediterranean port Alexandria, after national train services were cancelled in an apparent bid to stymie protests.

Tens of thousands of protesters carpeted Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicenter of demands for an end to the corruption, deprivation and police oppression indelibly associated with Mubarak's 30-year rule.

“We will stay in the square, until the coward leaves,” the crowd chanted.

The army has positioned tanks around the area and was checking identity papers but letting protesters in. Civilian popular committee members were also checking papers to make sure no plain-clothes police get in.

“We are looking for police trouble makers. They want to come in and break our unity,” said a popular committee member who asked not to be named.

Eid Mohammed, one of the protesters and organizers, told AFP: “It was decided overnight that there will be a million man march on Tuesday. We have also decided to begin an open-ended general strike.”

The strike was first called by workers at a factory in the canal city of Suez late on Sunday.

“We will be joining the Suez workers and begin a general strike until our demands are met,” Mohammed Waked, another protest organizer, told AFP.

Meanwhile Cairo's international airport was a scene of chaos and confusion on Monday as thousands of foreigners sought to flee the unrest in Egypt and countries around the world scrambled to send in planes to fly their citizens out, AP reported.

Nerves frayed, shouting matches erupted and some passengers even had a fistfight as thousands crammed into Cairo airport's new Terminal 3 seeking a flight home. The airport's departures board stopped announcing flight times in an attempt to reduce tensions -- but the move backfired, fueling anger over canceled or delayed flights.

An increasingly embattled Mubarak appointed the first vice president in his 30-year-rule, and a new prime minister in a desperate attempt to hold on to power.

Egypt ordered riot police back onto the streets nationwide two days after they virtually disappeared as the army was deployed to deal with the revolt, but few police were visible on Monday morning.

Inhabitants spat at a solitary police car driving through a Cairo residential neighborhood, an AFP correspondent reported.

Many Cairo men are exhausted, taking part in neighborhood vigilante groups protecting their homes from looters by night and protesting during the day.

Mubarak, who sacked his cabinet on Friday, tasked his new prime minister on Sunday to ram through democratic reforms.

His instructions to Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq were read out on state television late on Sunday but had no discernible effect on protesters bunkered down in Tahrir square vowing not to leave until he steps down.

Mubarak also said the new prime minister's priority was creating new jobs.

“Above all that, and concurrent with it, I emphasize the importance of urgently, completely, effectively taking new and continuous steps for more political reforms, constitutional and legislative, through dialogue with all parties,” Mubarak told Shafiq.

He also instructed the new cabinet, whose members have not yet been named, to end corruption and restore trust in the country's economy.

But the announcement created little excitement among the more than 1,000 people encamped Monday at Tahrir square, the protest epicenter, some sleeping but many more marching and chanting “We will stay in the square, until the coward leaves.”

“We are looking for police trouble makers, they want to come in and break our unity,” said a popular committee member who asked not to be named.

Nearby soldiers scrubbed furiously at their tanks in a bid to wash off some of the anti-Mubarak graffiti they have been covered in over the last three days, as officers looked on.

Top dissident Mohamed ElBaradei late Sunday told a sea of angry protesters in the square that they were beginning a new era.

The Nobel laureate, who was mandated by Egyptian opposition groups including the banned Muslim Brotherhood to negotiate with Mubarak's regime, hailed “a new Egypt in which every Egyptian lives in freedom and dignity.”

“We are on the right path, our strength is in our numbers,” ElBaradei said in his first address on Tahrir square. “I ask you to be patient, change is coming.”

“We will sacrifice our soul and our blood for the nation,” the angry crowd shouted. “The people want to topple the president.”

A coalition of four opposition parties announced late Sunday that they would not mandate ElBaradei to negotiate with the regime.

The coalition, includes the liberal Wafd party and Ghad parties, and the left-leaning Ghad and Nasserist parties, who all carry little weight in the political arena.

The protests against Mubarak's three-decade rule have shaken Egypt and left at least 125 people dead as the veteran leader clings to power.

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