A protester throws back a tear gas canister at the riot police at Tahrir Square in Cairo, Monday. — Reuters CAIRO — Egypt's army-appointed government handed in its resignation Monday, trying to stem a spiraling crisis as thousands of protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square clashed for the third straight day with security forces in violence that has killed at least 33 people and posed the most sustained challenge yet to the rule of the military. The crowds in Tahrir, which had grown to well over 10,000 after nightfall, broke out into cheers with the news of the Cabinet's move, chanting “God is Great.” But there was no sign the concession would break their determination to protest until the military hands over power to a civilian government. Beating drums, the protesters quickly resumed their chants of “the people want the ouster of the field marshal,” a reference to Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the head of the council of generals that has ruled the country since the Feb. 11 fall of Hosni Mubarak. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which Tantawi heads, did not immediately announce whether it would accept the mass resignation. Throughout Monday, black-garbed security forces fired tear gas, rubber bullets and — many protesters said — live ammunition at young men in the streets around Tahrir. The protesters hurled stones and threw back the gas canisters that clattered across the pavement, streaming stinging clouds. Sounds of gunfire crackled around the square, and a constant stream of injured protesters — bloodied from rubber bullets or overcome by gas — were brought into makeshift clinics set out on sidewalks, where volunteer doctors scrambled from patient to patient. “I will keep coming back until they kill me,” said Mohammed Sayyed, his head bandaged from a rubber bullet wound. “The people are frustrated. Nothing changed for the better.” “What does it mean, transfer power in 2013? It means simply that he wants to hold on to his seat,” said Sayyed, holding two rocks in his hand, ready to throw, as he took cover from tear gas in a side street off Tahrir.
