Cairo, Egypt (CNN) -- The government's call for protesters to obey curfew and the low-flying fighter jets overhead did nothing to deter thousands of Egyptians from continuing their protest into Sunday night.
Instead, crowds surrounded Mohamed ElBaradei, a leading opposition figure, as he walked into Cairo's Tahrir Square. Throngs of people cheered his arrival.
ElBaradei told protesters he came "to participate today in the lives of Egyptians. Today I look into the eyes of each one of you, and everyone is different today. Today you are an Egyptian demanding your rights and freedom, and what we started can never be pushed back. As we said, we have one main demand: the end of the regime and to start a new phase."
In a CNN interview earlier, ElBaradei called on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to "leave today and deployed to replace police forces that had crashed brutally with demonstrators.
However, the Interior Ministry ordered police back onto some streets, a move that angered protesters, said Heba Fatma Morayef, a Human Rights Watch researcher in Tahrir Square. The army remained in control of the square, she said.
Some residents picked up the slack for police in areas surrounding the protests -- offering to clean up trash, for example. Medical personnel worked their way through the crowd, seeing if anyone needed help.
"The square has emptied out since the afternoon, but it's still a great atmosphere, a sense of solidarity and very well-behaved -- people are sitting around bonfires, or walking around picking up rubbish," Morayef said. "Crowds who find occasional looters drag them over to the soldiers and hand them over."Street vendors were still selling food, she said.
With the world's attention focused on their efforts, the protesters issued two central demands: that the regime that has run Egypt for years face a trial and that the Constitution be changed.
Many expressed optimism that they will succeed. "This is the start of the rest of my life," one jubilant young man who appeared to be in his 20s told CNN. "As cheesy as it sounds, that's exactly how I feel right now.
In a statement carried by state television, Gen. Mohamad Tantawi, the defense minister in the sacked Egyptian government, urged the public to obey the 4 p.m.-8 a.m. curfew (9 a.m.-1 a.m. ET). Tantawi was escorted to the network's headquarters by red-helmeted troops in a convoy of sport-utility vehicles. Later, Egyptian TV stations showed him walking in the streets of Cairo checking on troops.He added that he had been concerned there wouldn't be enough people "to deter any threat -- either by police or by the army. Now, it's definitely over."
Fighter jets began flying low over the crowd of tens of thousands minutes before the curfew was to begin. The jets flew so low, according to CNN staffers on the ground, that their cockpits could be seen.
A group of Egyptian troops fired warning shots at a car that tried to run a barricade around Tahrir Square, but the vehicle made it through the barricade and escaped, according to CNN photographer Joe Duran.
Protesters showed no signs of winding down, indicating a likelihood that they will continue their efforts into Monday, which would mark the seventh straight day of the protests that have grabbed the world's attention.
Several thousand people remained in the square Sunday night, and many said they plan to stay in place until Mubarak resigns, Morayef said.
She said the crowd gave "a huge cheer" when they heard ElBaradei was coming, but because of the chanting -- "Mubarak, you must leave" -- she was unable to hear what ElBaradei said.
The curfew time on Monday will begin an hour earlier, at 3 p.m. (8 a.m. ET), and last until 8 a.m. (1 a.m. ET), Nile TV reported.Whether the 450,000-strong armed forces -- deployed to the streets for the first time since the mid-1980s -- will remain loyal to Mubarak is a key question for the nation's future.
There were also protests in other parts of the country, including in Alexandria, where demonstrators seemed to be expressing more frustration Sunday -- with the fact that Mubarak has not stepped down and with the lack of security in many areas.
Fear of anarchy and looting lingered Sunday. Many in the nation's capital have been left without security after police stopped patrolling.Shops and businesses were looted and abandoned police stations were stripped clean of their arsenals.
A body was found in front of the country's Interior Ministry Sunday morning, but there was no police presence nearby.One of the biggest concerns of many Egyptians in the wake of the chaos -- that prisoners could escape -- proved true. Nile TV said some prisoners broke out of Abu Zaabal prison in Cairo, though it was not immediately clear how many. At the Ataa prison in Al Badrashin, a town in Giza, some prisoners broke out too. Roughly 1,000 inmates escaped from Prison Demu in Fayoum, southwest of Cairo, Nile TV reported early Sunday.
More than 3,000 people have been arrested so far, including some prisoners and looters, Nile TV reported."Those thugs are setting things on fire. ... They are setting fire in front of the hospital," a caller to Nile TV said, identifying herself as a doctor in a Cairo neighborhood."It seems that every major square and every small street in Cairo was basically taken over by communities ... people are parading the streets, walking around with baseball bats and knives," said Ahmed Rehab of the Council on American Islamic Relations from Cairo. "We didn't get any sleep all night."
Egyptian Ambassador to the United States Sameh Shoukry told CNN, "The situation seems to be improving slightly in terms of security for private and public property.""The military has achieved some positive results in rounding up some of the prison escapees and in providing security in neighborhoods," he added.
Cell phone and mobile Internet service appeared to have returned, but word of a possible new crackdown on communication emerged Sunday.Egypt's Information Ministry announced that it was revoking Al-Jazeera's license and withdrawing accreditation of the network's staff, state media reported.
"The closing of our bureau by the Egyptian government is aimed at censoring and silencing the voices of the Egyptian people," the Al-Jazeera network said in a statement.The network's Arabic-language channel was off the air in Egypt Sunday afternoon, but Al Jazeera English was still on the air.As the threat of further unrest loomed, Turkey sent two planes to Egypt on Sunday to begin evacuation of its citizens, Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Selcuk Una said.The U.S. Embassy in Cairo said it would assist American citizens who want to leave Egypt with flights departing from the country's capital Monday, embassy spokeswoman Elizabeth Colton said.Mubarak appointed his trusted and powerful intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, as his deputy, the first time the authoritarian regime has had such a post. Suleiman is well respected by the military and is credited with crushing an Islamic insurgency in the 1990s, for which he earned the ear of Western intelligence officials thirsting for vital information about regional terrorist groups.
Suleiman had a meeting Sunday with the head of the military and the interior minister, Egyptian TV network ESC reported.
Mubarak also asked Ahmed Shafik, the civil aviation minister in the cabinet that just stepped down, to form a new government, Nile TV reported. Shafik is a former Air Force officer with strong military connections.The protests come weeks after similar disturbances sparked a revolution in Tunisia, forcing then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee the country.Both Egypt and Tunisia have seen dramatic rises in the cost of living in recent years and accusations of corruption among the ruling elite.
Tunisia-inspired demonstrations have also taken place in Algeria, Yemen and Jordan.The Egyptian crisis reverberated across the world, with activists in cities including New York, Toronto and Geneva staging protests Saturday in support of those in Egypt, demanding that Mubarak step down.Mubarak addressed the nation in a televised speech early Saturday. He said he asked his government to step down but he intended to stay in power.
"These protests arose to express a legitimate demand for more democracy, need for a greater social safety net, and the improvement of living standards, fighting poverty and rampant corruption," he said.
The aging president has ruled Egypt with an iron fist for three decades, and it was widely believed he was grooming his son, Gamal, as his successor -- a plan now complicated by demands for democracy.
"I understand these legitimate demands of the people and I truly understand the depth of their worries and burdens, and I will not part from them ever and I will work for them every day," he said. "But regardless of what problems we face, this does not justify violence or lawlessness."
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