CAIRO: Egypt's military rulers Monday swore in a new Cabinet that includes new faces in key ministries, responding to protesters' demands that the new government be free of stalwarts of ousted president Hosni Mubarak. The new Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Essam Sharaf, a US-educated civil engineer, is expected to be met with the approval of the pro-reform groups that led the 18-day uprising that forced Mubarak to step down on Feb. 11. State TV showed members of the government taking an oath during Monday's swearing-in-ceremony before the head of Egypt's Armed Forces Supreme Council, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi. The caretaker government's main job and challenge will be to help steer the country through reforms and toward free elections. Among the most significant changes in the Cabinet designed to meet with protesters' demands, Sharaf named a new interior minister. Maj. Gen. Mansour El-Essawy, a former Cairo security chief, replaces Mahmoud Wagdi, who held the post for less than a month. The Interior Ministry is in charge of the security forces. El-Essawy, according to a report by the state news agency, pledged after meeting Sharaf Sunday that he would work to restore security and reduce the role of the hated State Security agency. Protesters have over the past few days rallied outside about a dozen State Security offices across the nation, in many cases storming the buildings, including the agency's main headquarters in the Cairo suburb of Nasr City. The protests followed reports that agents were burning and shredding documents to destroy evidence that would incriminate them in possible cases of human rights abuses. The State Security agency, which employs about 100,000 of Egypt's 500,000-strong security forces, is blamed for the worst human rights abuses against Mubarak's opponents. Dismantling the agency has been a key demand of the protest groups that led the uprising. In another sign of the simmering unrest in Egypt, thousands of Coptic Christian protesters blocked traffic on a main bridge in Cairo Monday to demand an end to the discrimination they say the minority faces. The crowds were also angry over a dispute between a Christian and a Muslim family south of Cairo over the weekend that resulted in the deaths of two people and the torching of a church. Egypt's military promised to rebuild the church, but the protesters said they wanted more steps to improve the status of Christians. Among the other new faces in Egypt's Cabinet was Nabil El-Arabi, a veteran and popular public figure who replaces foreign minister Ahmed Aboul-Gheit. His predecessor had held the job since 2004 but has been maligned by the protesters because of his criticism of the uprising in its early days. The new Cabinet also includes a new justice minister, Mohammed Al-Jundi, replacing one who was considered a close Mubarak ally and whose dismissal was demanded by the opposition groups.
