CAIRO: Protesters and police engaged in sporadic clashes Sunday at security headquarters in Cairo as violence raged into a fourth day and the interior minister leapt to the defense of his reviled forces.The fighting was sparked by the perceived failure of Egypt’s military rulers and police to prevent violence after a football match in the northern city of Port Said Wednesday that left 74 dead.

Clashes have been fuelled by police action, including the use of tear gas and birdshot, against protesters, with the Health Ministry reporting at least 12 people killed in Cairo and Suez in the backlash since Thursday.

Hundreds of riot police Sunday blocked roads leading to the Interior Ministry headquarters in the center of the capital, facing down youths throwing rocks and petrol bombs.

Police erected several concrete block walls on the roads leading to the ministry, which has become the nerve center of the skirmishes, while entrenching themselves behind coils of barbed wire.

“There is an insistence [by protesters] on storming the Interior Ministry and implementing a plot,” said Interior Minister Mohammad Ibrahim.

Ibrahim said police did not want to harm any “revolutionaries” among the protesters, but were prepared to confront others “who want to ruin the country.”

Police earlier moved on protester positions in the rock-strewn streets, firing birdshot and detained medics at a field hospital but later released them, a doctor, Mustafa Nabil, told AFP.

The protesters denied they intended to storm the ministry.

“We are protesting here because this is the police headquarters,” said protester Ahmad Farah.

The Port Said violence has been blamed by protesters and commentators on ex-members of the Mubarak regime, including his sons Alaa and Gamal, who are detained in Torah jail outside Cairo on corruption charges.

The Interior Ministry said that it was going to split the officials, who include former ministers and security chiefs, and place them in five different prisons “in response to demands by protesters.”