(Reuters) – At least four tanks deployed outside the Egyptian presidential palace on Thursday in a street where supporters and opponents of President Mohamed Mursi had been clashing into the early hours of the morning, Reuters witnesses said.
Three armored troop carriers were also in the street outside the palace. The violence that had stretched from Wednesday afternoon into the early hours of Thursday had abated and the streets were calm.
The soldiers’ badges identified them as members of the Republican Guard, whose duties include guarding the presidency.
Traffic was moving through streets strewn with rocks thrown during the violence. Hundreds of Mursi supporters were still in the area, many wrapped in blankets and some reading the Koran.
“We came here to support President Mursi and his decisions. He is the elected president of Egypt,” said Emad Abou Salem, 40, a Mursi supporter. “He has legitimacy and nobody else does.”
(Reporting by Reuters TV/Edmund Blair; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Patrick Graham)