Anti-government protesters held their grip on the square at the center of efforts to oust Egypt's president early Thursday.
A day after President Hosni Mubarak answered more than a week of protests by declaring he would not seek reelection this fall, his supporters converged on Tahrir Square to confront the opposition.
But opponents of the 82-year-old president, who has been in power for three decades, accused his backers of orchestrating a day of pitched battles around the square. Egyptian officials said at least three people were killed and more than 600 were injured.
The army, positioned around the plaza, fired into the air but did little else to intervene. The crowd of anti-government protesters inside Tahrir, sparse compared with the hundreds of thousands who were there Tuesday, was besieged on all sides by a large force and attacked with firebombs from nearby rooftops.
But as Thursday began, the number of Mubarak supporters was dwindling rapidly and defenders of the square had pushed them back from one of the main points where the two sides had faced off.
The Egyptian military had called for an end to the protests, an announcement widely seen as a signal that the military had not abandoned Mubarak.
Omar Suleiman, a former intelligence chief appointed vice president last week, said the government couldn't begin talks with the opposition until normal daily life resumed.
The opposition said that Wednesday's violence showed that any such discussions were pointless until Mubarak was gone.
In Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the Egyptian president had a chance to show the world "exactly who he is" by reforming his authoritarian government. "If any of the violence is instigated by the government, it should stop immediately," he said.
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