By Ian Johnston, Staff Writer, NBC News
The United States should stop sending military aid to Egypt following the overthrow of its democratically elected president by the military, Senator John McCain said, as overnight street battles left at least 36 dead across the divided country.
Egypt?s military insists that ousting Islamist Mohammed Morsi on Wednesday was the will of the people as expressed by mass demonstrations calling for him to go.
PJ Crowley, former assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and a fellow at George Washington University, joins MSNBC's Alex Witt to explain the diplomatic implications in Egypt. Crowley does think that a military coup took place in Egypt. He says that the U.S. gives a paltry amount of civilian aid and notes that the coup is an opportunity to curtail military aid and increase civilian aid. He explains the questions that arise including, will the military have a more effective interim rule than last year before Morsi was elected and can the opposition coalesce and rally behind a single view and person.
Secretary of State John Kerry approved $1.3 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Egypt ? the second largest recipient of such help after Israel ? only two months ago.
However, U.S. law prohibits financial assistance to any country whose elected head of state is deposed in a military coup.
Cairo's emblematic Tahrir Square and nearby approaches to the River Nile ? which were the focus of anti-Morsi demonstrations -- were largely empty early Saturday but were strewn with debris, The Associated Press reported.
Thousands of Morsi's Islamist supporters marched to the area Friday demanding his reinstatement but ended up fleeing under a hail of stones, fireworks and sometimes gunfire.
Hitha Prabhakar joins MSNBC's Alex Witt to break down the 3 Big Money Headlines. She mentions that oil analysts are watching the situation in Egypt and they are saying how it will negatively impact gas prices. She discussed the jobs numbers that came out on Friday and explains what hedge fund manager Ron Baron meant when he talked about the Dow reaching 60,000.
Mohammed Sultan, deputy head of the national ambulance service, told the AP that at least 36 people were killed in Friday's clashes, the highest death toll in one day since the latest outbreak of protests began last Sunday. Another 1,076 were injured.?
Morsi?s Muslim Brotherhood movement said the country had returned to the days of military rule under former President Hosni Mubarak. The Muslim Brotherhood was a banned organization for much of his rule.
"It's the old police state of Mubarak with every ingredient and nightmare that it had before the January 25 revolution. It's as if we hit the reset button,? Brotherhood spokesman Gehad El-Haddad told Reuters.
The Brotherhood?s website said some 3 million people had taken part in pro-Morsi demonstrations.
It issued four demands late Friday: Morsi?s return to office; the cancellation of all ?unconstitutional coup-related decisions, decrees and actions announced by the military council with which it usurped power;? the reinstatement of the constitution; and for officials to be held accountable for the killing of protesters and other ?oppressive tactics.?
The U.S. has avoided calling Morsi?s ouster a coup, which would mean aid would have to be suspended.
For hours, there was no security in sight as the fighting ensued. Guns, stones and even fireworks were used as weapons but Morsi's supporters were driven back by the anti-Morsi demonstrators, and the military. NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports.
But, speaking in Prescott, Arizona, McCain said, ?I say that with great reluctance, but the United States of America I think must learn the lessons of history and that is: We cannot stand by without acting in cases where freely elected governments are unseated by the military arm of those nations.?
He said he believed U.S. aid had to be suspended, and called on the Egyptian military to set a timetable for elections and a new constitution.
?Then we should evaluate whether to continue the aid or not,? he said. ?I am aware that by suspending aid to the Egyptian military, which is the only stable institution in Egypt, we are risking further problems in the Sinai, and in other areas of cooperation with the Egyptian military.?
Hassan Ammar / AP
Days of massive protests and a military ultimatum forced the country's first democratically elected president from office.
A new Islamist group calling itself Ansar al-Shariah in Egypt announced its formation amid the chaos, calling the army's ousting of Morsi a declaration of war on its faith and threatening to use violence to impose Islamic law.
The group said it would gather arms and start training its members, in a statement posted on an online forum for militants in the country's Sinai region on Friday and recorded by the SITE Monitoring organization, Reuters reported.
The group blamed the events on secularists, Egyptian Coptic Christians, state security forces and army commanders, who they said would turn the country into ?a crusader, secular freak.?
It denounced democracy and said it would instead champion Islamic law, or sharia, acquire weapons and train to allow Muslims to "deter the attackers, preserve the religion and empower the sharia of the Lord," SITE reported.
State-owned newspapers said the army-backed authorities would announce the appointment of a prime minister on Saturday to run the country during a transition period, Reuters reported. Former U.N. nuclear agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, 71, a leading liberal politician, was seen as the most likely candidate to lead an administration focused on reviving a shattered economy and restoring civil peace and security.?
The U.S. State Department condemned the violence Friday.
Thousands of people marched in support of ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi, who is being held at an army barracks near the airport. The clashes continued in Cairo, Alexandria and Sinai where the army was on high alert. NBC's Richard Engel reports.
?We call on all Egyptian leaders to condemn the use of force and to prevent further violence among their supporters,? spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.
?The voices of all who are protesting peacefully must be heard - including those who welcomed the events of earlier this week and those who supported President Morsy,? she added. ?The Egyptian people must come together to resolve their differences peacefully, without recourse to violence or the use of force."
The chaotic scenes that played out in the capital, mostly on a bridge leading to Tahrir, ended overnight only after the army rushed in with armored vehicles to separate the warring groups. Some of Morsi's opponents jumped on at least one vehicle to try to show that the military was on their side.
Across the country, clashes erupted as Morsi supporters tried to storm local government buildings or military facilities, battling police or Morsi opponents.
Islamists descended on anti-Morsi rally, opening fire with guns in the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria, where at least 12 people were killed, mostly Morsi opponents, emergency services official Amr Salama said.
One man was stabbed and thrown from the roof of a building by Morsi supporters after he raised an Egyptian flag and shouted insults against the ousted president, according to an AP reporter at the scene.
Friday's turmoil began in the afternoon when army troops opened fire as hundreds of his supporters marched on the Republican Guard building in Cairo. That site is where Morsi was staying when he was toppled before being taken into military custody at an undisclosed location.
The crowd approached a barbed wire barrier where troops were standing guard. When one person hung a sign of Morsi on the barrier, soldiers tore it down and told the crowd to stay back. A protester put up a second sign, and the soldiers opened fire, according to an AP photographer.
The Health Ministry said a total of four were killed at the site, though it was not known how all died.?
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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This story was originally published on Sat Jul 6, 2013 4:17 AM EDT
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