Mubarak says resigning would bring chaos

Mubarak's government has struggled to regain control of a nation angry about poverty, recession and political repression, inviting Islamist opponents to talks and apologizing for Wednesday's bloodshed in Cairo that left 10 people dead.

A bloody confrontation gripped central Cairo where armed government loyalists fought pro-democracy demonstrators on Thursday in an uprising which is reshaping the modern history of this key U.S. ally and the Arab world's most populous nation.

"I am fed up. After 62 years in public service, I have had enough. I want to go," Mubarak, 82, who remains inside his heavily guarded palace in Cairo, said in an interview with ABC.

"If I resign today, there will be chaos," he added. Asked to comment on calls for him to resign, he said: "I don't care what people say about me. Right now I care about my country."

Protesters, who numbered some 10,000 in Tahrir (Liberation) Square during the day, prepared to defy a curfew and sleep there ahead of a big demonstration they are calling the "Friday of Departure" to mark last week's bloody "Day of Wrath" protest.

The U.S. State Department said it expected confrontation.

"We are bracing for a significant increase in the number of demonstrators on the streets and with that, given yesterday's events, the real prospects of a confrontation," said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.

New Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq said the interior minister should not obstruct Friday's peaceful marches. The Interior Ministry has denied it ordered its agents or officers to attack anti-Mubarak protesters.

Mubarak blamed the Muslim Brotherhood movement for the violence and said his government was not responsible for it. "I was very unhappy about yesterday. I do not want to see Egyptians fighting each other," Mubarak told ABC.

But Crowley said Washington believed elements close to the government or Mubarak's ruling party were responsible for Wednesday's widespread violence. "I don't know that we have a sense of how far up the chain it went," Crowley said.

In a move to try to calm the disorder, Vice President Omar Suleiman said Thursday the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's most organized opposition movement, had been invited to meet with the new government as part of a national dialogue with all parties.

An offer to talk to the banned group would have been unthinkable before protests erupted on January 25, indicating the giant strides made by the reformist movement since then. But scenting victory, they have refused talks until Mubarak goes.

ARMY ROLE CRITICAL

Protesters in Tahrir Square, dominated now by a youthful hard core including secular middle-class graduates and mostly poorer Islamist activists from the Brotherhood, barely listened, saying the concessions were too little and too late.