Protesters sit inside the tracks of Egyptian Army tanks both to prevent them from moving and to shield themselves from the rain, as a soldier, talks to one of them at the protest site opposite the Egyptian Museum near Liberation Square in downtown Cairo.
An Egyptian activist says several Egyptian army officers and soldiers have warned the military that they will no longer shoot protesters, instead they will shoot the commanders."I think some of them (the army personnel) might join protesters. We have heard some of the officers and soldiers saying if we receive an order to shoot people, we would shoot whoever issued the order," Wael Abbas, a member of the opposition Egypt Revolution Youth Movement, told Press TV in a phone interview on Thursday.
Egypt Revolution Youth Movement has been one of the active rights groups in 17 days of revolution which has rocked the North African country.
"I have no confirmation if the army is going to intervene in favor of the protesters or in favor of the regime," Abbas added.
Revolution has entered its 17th consecutive day in crisis-hit Egypt, despite massive crackdown on demonstrators in the past two days, which left more than a hundred people killed or wounded.
Thousands of pro-democracy protesters camped overnight in the streets in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, near parliament building, the site of a massive march on Wednesday.
The angry protesters blocked roads and railways connecting the northern part of the country to the south on Thursday.
Reports say the protesters set fire to tires placed across the main motorway that goes from Cairo to Assiut, 350 kilometers south of Cairo.
Around 8,000 protesters, mainly farmers, took to the streets in Assiut, and used wooden planks and bricks to block the railway line. More than 3,000 railway workers went on strike to put more pressure on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to resign.
Meanwhile, the army has been deployed in force in the capital Cairo. Security is reportedly tight in the streets leading to Nasr City and New Egypt districts.
Egypt's main opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, earlier revealed that the regime of the embattled Mubarak intends to crack down on Friday's "Day of Massive Protest March."
The Muslim Brotherhood says some 30,000 security forces will be deployed to prevent any pro-democracy protests in Cairo's Liberation Square.
The group added that it has called 800,000 of its members for the Friday demonstrations.
Egypt has been rocked by millions-strong nationwide protests against beleaguered Mubarak over the past 17 days. The protesters want Mubarak to step down.
Hundreds of protesters were killed and wounded in Kharga in southern Egypt, on Wednesday.
Michel Chossudovsky,
Our message to the protest movement:
1--Actual decisions are taken in Washington DC, at the US State Department, at the Pentagon, at Langley, headquarters of the CIA. at H Street NW, the headquarters of the World Bank and the IMF.
2--The relationship of "the dictator" to foreign interests must be addressed. Unseat the political puppets but do not forget to target the "real dictators".
3--The protest movement should focus on the real seat of political authority; it should target (in a peaceful, orderly and nonviolent fashion) the US embassy, the delegation of the European Union, the national missions of the IMF and the World Bank.
4--Meaningful political change can only be ensured if the neoliberal economic policy agenda is thrown out.
5--If the protest movement fails to address the role of foreign powers including pressures exerted by "investors", external creditors and international financial institutions, the objective of national sovereignty will not be achieved. In which case, what will occur is a narrow process of "regime replacement", which ensures political continuity.
6--"Dictators" are seated and unseated. When they are politically discredited and no longer serve the interests of their US sponsors, they are replaced by a new leader, often recruited from within the ranks of the political opposition.