Islamists and police exchange gunfire at Cairo mosque

Medical team going inside Cairo\'s al-Fath mosque Cairo – Arab Today Gunshots were heard on Saturday by a Cairo mosque where Egyptian security forces and angry residents have surrounded supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi, an AFP correspondent reported. State news agency MENA said gunmen were firing from inside al-Fath mosque, and live television footage from the scene also showed gunfire from outside targeting its minaret.
Earlier, the government said that 173 people were killed across in the last 24 hours, the government said on Saturday, after clashes between security forces and protesters.
The deaths came after supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi took to the streets after Friday prayers for nationwide demonstrations that quickly triggered violence.
In a press conference, a government spokesperson said 95 of the 173 people were killed in central Cairo. The official added that 596 people were hurt in the Cairo clashes, with a total of 1330 wounded nationwide.
On Saturday morning, soldiers began escorting people out of al-Fath mosque where 100s of anti-government protesters are thought to have barricaded themselves in.
Protesters shut themselves inside the facility in Ramses Square on Friday night, fearful of the hostile crowd gathered outside and resisting demands by authorities that the men go for questioning, according to reports.
At 1000 GMT on Saturday morning that several protesters had left the mosque within the last hour, with security forces providing a cordon to protect them from the angry crowd.
The first to leave was a mixed group of men and women, and the body of a woman who apparently died from gas inhalation or suffocation was also carried out, the news agency reported.
Protesters had previously reported being attacked with tear gas by security forces outside the building, and one woman reportedly died from tear-gas inhalation.
The network said that upon leaving the mosque, some of the protesters were arrested, including women.
Many protesters are thought to still be inside the mosque, although the exact number is unknown.
The Egyptian army wishes to take protesters to a military location for questioning relating to attacks on two police stations in Cairo during protests on Friday afternoon.
The news comes as protesters plan new marches after a day of clashes that left 83 dead and saw over 1000 alleged Muslim Brotherhood supporters arrested, as Egyptian forces continued their crackdown on protests calling for ousted president Mohammed Morsi to be reinstalled.
Earlier, television footage showed troops inside the al-Fath mosque mosque, in Ramses Square, apparently trying to persuade protesters to give themselves up.
Security forces offered safe passage for female protesters in the mosque overnight, but the women refused to leave without the men who the forces demanded come for questioning.
Protesters wanted assurances they will not be arrested or attacked by hostile crowds gathered outside, according to a protester inside the mosque who spoke to AFP.
One protester told AFP there were over 1000 protesters in the mosque, which had previously held bodies of more than 20 people killed in Friday’s clashes.
Another said men had barricaded the doors after “thugs” tried to storm building.
But security officials quoted by the official MENA news agency said that \"armed elements\" had been shooting at security forces and police from inside the mosque.
Morsi\'s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) pleaded for another \"massacre\" to be avoided after at least 578 people were killed across the country on Wednesday when police cleared protest camps set up by loyalists of the former president, deposed by the military on July 3.
It was not possible to verify the numbers in the mosque independently.
The latest unrest started as Morsi supporters emerged from mosques in the capital to protest in what they billed as a \"Friday of rage\" following Wednesday\'s bloodbath.
Violence erupted almost immediately, with gunshots ringing out in Cairo and security forces firing tear gas.
In the capital, a man leapt off a bridge near a police station to escape shooting as police armoured vehicles advanced on protesters, witnesses said.
The demonstrations ended shortly after a night-time curfew came into effect but Anti-Coup Alliance spokesman Gehad el-Haddad told AFP that Morsi loyalists would hold \"daily anti-coup rallies\" going forward.
The interior ministry said \"the number of Muslim Brotherhood elements arrested reached 1004,\" including 558 in Cairo alone.
The Egyptian cabinet issued a defiant statement after the unrest, saying it was confronting a \"terrorist plot.\"
\"The cabinet affirms that the government, the armed forces, the police and the great people of Egypt are united in confronting the malicious terrorist plot by the Muslim Brotherhood,\" it said.
And the interior ministry, which authorised police to use live fire if government buildings came under attack, accused the Brotherhood of attacking police stations, saying it foiled attempts to storm buildings.
Additional sources: AFP, al-Jazeera