gigantic crowd assembling

0920: The Guardian’s Cairo reporter Jack Senker tweets: “People of #Egypt are approaching #Tahrir from every direction: Cairo’s roar will shake the world today”.

0925: A string of reports from Tahrir Square are remarking on the sheer size of the crowd gathering there this morning.

When was the last time we saw a crowd this large be this justifiably angry?

the mid-level army officers

Those 15 or 16 mid-level army officers who have defected to the protestors are brave people. If a crackdown succeeds, they will all be summarily shot as mutineers.

Sandmonkey assesses the current situation

HERE.

tweet from Tahrir

getting very loud very fast in Tahrir — not a good day to be an Egyptian dictator. #jan25

more military news

I believe the second one unreservedly, but am not as sure about the first.

0840: Egyptian blogger Arwa Mahmoud has tweeted his take on the upcoming military announcement: “Second military statement expected in a while. Expectations are that it will oust Mubarak. #Egypt #jan25 #tahrir”

0845: Egyptian army officer tells Reuters that 15 other mid-ranking officers have “joined the people’s revolution”.

maybe even before Friday prayers

0806: TV pictures from Cairo show crowds already building in Tahrir Square. It’s hard to judge numbers, but the square is already busy – and filling up by the minute.

morning at the palace

And remember, add two hours to these BBC-fed tweets to know the corresponding time in Cairo:

0759: Shadi Hamid, Director of Research at the Brookings Doha Center, tweets: “Right by presidential palace now. Hearing that soldiers warned protesters they were from presidential guard&had orders to shoot #jan25”

a joke and two non-jokes

“There were even moments of humor in a country with a well-deserved reputation for it. Protesters joked that the defining chant of the protests — ‘The people want the overthrow of the government’ — had become ‘The people want to understand the speech.'”

But from the same article:

“Can this man be serious or did he lose his mind?” asked George Ishak, a longtime opposition leader. “People will not go home and tomorrow will be a horrible day. It is a redundant speech, it is annoying and we heard it a thousand times before.”

Mohamed ElBaradei, an opposition leader and Nobel laureate, was blunter. “I ask the army to intervene immediately to save Egypt,” he wrote on his Twitter feed. “The credibility of the army is being put to the test.”

more tactical brilliance

THIS ARTICLE in the Wall Street Journal discusses January 25, the first day of protests. 20 mosques were announced as protest sites that day, and riot police showed up in droves at each of those places. But a 21st site was not announced, a closely guarded secret: in the Bulaq neighborhood. This was the group that succeeded in advancing to Tahrir on that first day.

palace as possible flashpoint

Port_Sa3eedy: Presidential guards forces has direct order to ex-terminate any danger approaching the palace, prevent the massacre, plz spread #Egypt 😦

But is this person a protestor or a “concern troll” trying to stop a march on the palace for the President’s sake?