Cairo: Embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak left Cairo with his family on Friday, a source close to the government told AFP, and a ruling party spokesman said the ruler was now in Sharm el-Sheikh.

"Mubarak has left Cairo with all his family," the source said.

"He is in Sharm el-Sheikh," National Democratic Party spokesman Mohammed Abdellah told AFP.

His departure comes on the 18th day of massive nationwide rallies demanding his immediate overthrow. Hundreds of thousands of protesters have rejected concessions made by Mubarak's government and vowed to keep demonstrating until their demands are met.

And his apparent departure to Sharm, a Red Sea resort town in which he maintains a residence, appeared to do little to placate protesters.

"He has to leave the country, our demands are clear," said Magdy Sabry, one of thousands blockading the state television building in central Cairo.

"We want the entire (ruling) National Democratic Party to be dissolved and to get out because they have destroyed the country," he said.

Outside Mubarak's presidential palace in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis, 40-year-old Mohammed Hamdan said the long-time ruler was missing the point.

"People here don't care if he's in the palace or not. We want him to quit the presidency," said Hamdan, who works for an oil firm.

On Thursday, Mubarak handed some powers over to his powerful deputy Omar Suleiman but dashed the hopes of protesters who had been expecting him to announce his resignation.

From Reuters

Meanwhile, enraged by President Hosni Mubarak's determination to stay in office, Egyptians rallied in protest outside his Cairo palace, dismissing army guarantees of a transition to free elections as insufficient.

Hundreds of thousands performed Friday prayers in Tahrir Square, where robed Islamic clerics drew parallels between the protesters' struggle with Mubarak and that of the Prophet Moses with the ancient pharaoh. 'May God force out the oppressors!" the clerics chanted. "Amen, amen," responded the worshippers.

Outside the presidential palace, men prayed behind army vehicles. The military did not interfere, though they had blocked the main roads leading to the palace, a vast, walled complex where Mubarak conducts much of his official business.

"Down, down Hosni Mubarak!" chanted the protesters, some of hundreds who had walked for more than an hour to reach the palace on Thursday night, redeploying from the epicentre of the protest in Tahrir Square in central Cairo.

"Get out! Why are you staying? shouted five elderly women.

"Thirty years is enough," they screamed, addressing the 82-year old president. The protesters outside the palace numbered some 2,000 by afternoon.

It was the first protest rally outside the palace since Jan. 25, when the revolt began. People familiar with presidential affairs said it was unlikely that Mubarak was there.

"We won't leave until Mubarak steps down and God willing, today's protest will be peaceful," said Yasmine Mohamed, 23, a university student. "Everything will turn out good and he will step down for sure."

A member of one of the youth movements behind the protests that erupted on Jan. 25 said the demonstrators would "take over the palace". "We'll have masses of Egyptians after Friday prayer to take it over," said Ahmed Farouk, 27.

In Egypt's second city Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets after Friday prayers. Sheikh Ahmed al-Mahalawi, delivering a sermon in Alexandria's main mosque, told worshippers not to back down.

"Do not retreat from your revolution because history will not retreat," he said in a sermon broadcast by Al Jazeera television. He told the worshippers they were bringing down a "corrupt regime" that was not fit to govern.