Cairo: Egyptian troops fired warning shots and scuffles broke out as policemen protested on Sunday to restore their reputation after they found themselves on the wrong side of the country's anti-regime revolt.
One policeman's teeth were smashed in during a clash with soldiers outside the interior ministry, where around 400 members of the force demanded pay rises and called for former interior minister Habib al-Adly to be executed.
Troops had fired over the heads of the protesters, some of whom were in uniform, as the crowd chanted at their former boss: "Habib, you know you will be executed in the public square!"
Egypt's police are broadly despised and seen as a brutal and corrupt force, while the military has been embraced by the protesters who forced president Hosni Mubarak out of office on Friday.
But those protesting on Sunday insisted that they had been ordered to deal harshly with the protests by Mubarak's security services, and argued that they were underpaid by their corrupt government masters.
"We are not traitors," the chanted. "Our brothers were at the protests."
Outside the interior ministry the army brought in a tank and an armoured personnel carrier to reinforce their positions. Another police protest was held outside a police station in Cairo's Dokki district.
Another group of policemen, one bearing a bunch of flowers, tried to show solidarity with the remaining anti-regime protesters occupying Tahrir Square, but they were rebuffed amid scuffles and insults.