Politics

Late-Night Gunfire in Cairo

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It's getting even uglier in Egypt:

Supporters of President Hosni Mubarak opened fire on Thursday on protesters camped out in Cairo's Tahrir Square, wounding at least seven, witnesses said.

Al Arabiya television quoted a doctor at the scene as saying one protester was killed when a barrage of gunfire rang out across the square at around 0400 am (2 a.m. British time). Another witness said as many as 15 people had been wounded.

"People are too tired to be terrified," al Jazeera television quoted a 33-year-old woman in the square as saying.

But she said protesters who launched an unprecedented challenge to Mubarak's 30-year-rule last week would not give up. "We cannot go back at this point."

There is chatter in my Twitter feed about getting Washington to intervene, so I'd like to remind everyone that Washington is intervening. Egypt is the fourth largest recipient of U.S. aid in the world. You may well have paid for those bullets.