CAIRO: A security agency headquarters was set on fire as protesters battled police for a third straight day in Port Said Tuesday, and Egypt’s Islamist president considered handing the military full control of the restive Mediterranean coastal city in a sign of the collapse of control there.

A handover to the military would be recognition of the failure of President Mohammad Mursi’s government to bring calm to Port Said, which has been in turmoil since late January. Furious at the president and the security forces, residents have been waging a campaign of protests and strikes amounting to an outright revolt against the central government.

But Mursi appeared to back down from the idea. Tuesday evening, his office issued a statement denying he had made such a decision and underlining that the police remained “the main authority in charge of securing the city.” Military spokesman Ahmad Mohammad Ali also denied Mursi had asked the army to take over.

The reluctance to call in the military could reflect the multiple conflicting interests and rivalries in Egypt’s halls of power. Mursi likely is loath to hand the generals greater authority. Amid increasing tensions with Mursi’s administration, the military is hesitant to be seen as acting on his behalf and risk a clash with protesters.

And the Interior Ministry, in charge of domestic security forces, may be resisting the humiliation of having security duties in the city taken from its hands – setting a possible precedent for doing so in other parts of Egypt.

But the turmoil deepened the perception of confusion in Egypt’s leadership in the face of months of unrest that has been mounting around the country, though the heaviest protests have been in Port Said, where three civilians and three policemen have been killed and hundreds wounded since Sunday.

The violence comes ahead of parliamentary elections, which begin in April but which the opposition is boycotting.

Police appeared to be digging in their heels in Port Said. Reinforcements, including armored vehicles and riot police, arrived in the city Tuesday even as clashes with protesters continued into the night. A fire erupted in the ground floor of the National Security Agency headquarters during fighting between police firing tear gas and bird shot and protesters throwing stones and firebombs.

At least 150 people were wounded in the clashes, including 12 by live ammunition and bird shot, according to Health Ministry official Salah al-Afani.

“It is like a civil war right now,” said Mohammad Youssef, a member of April 6, one of the youth groups that engineered the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak. “We can’t tell what it will be like in the coming days because every day is getting worse than the day before.”

Port Said’s protesters largely see the military positively – particularly after troops Sunday fired over the heads of police in an attempt to push them back from clashes with protesters outside police headquarters. Monday, soldiers protected the funeral processions of protesters killed in the fighting and have largely stood by when protesters torched government buildings.

Some opponents of Mursi and his ruling Muslim Brotherhood have called on the military to take back power nationwide to end the unrest that first erupted in November and has since spiraled out of control. The mainly liberal and secular opposition accuse the Brotherhood of dominating power and say the unrest shows the group is incapable of dealing with the country’s multiple woes.

Mursi’s Islamist supporters have accused the opposition of trying to use street violence to overturn their repeated victories in elections since Mubarak’s fall. Army troops have been guarding key installations in Port Said since the city first rose up in near revolt in January. Military officials say they have an emergency plan to secure Port Said and the strategic Suez Canal if necessary, regardless of whether police remain or pull out.

The turmoil in Port Said started Jan. 26, after a court issued death sentences against 21 defendants – mostly Port Said residents – for involvement in a deadly football riot in the city in February 2012 that killed 74 people, mostly fans of a rival Cairo football club, Al-Ahly. Many in the city saw the verdicts as politicized.

Protests over the verdicts turned into deadly clashes in which more than 40 people were killed, mostly at the hands of police. Port Said residents allege Mursi gave police the green light to use excessive force. For the past nearly three weeks, residents have been carrying out a campaign of civil disobedience and strikes.

Many fear a new wave of violence on March 9, when a court issues verdicts for more defendants in the football riot case, including several police officers.