CAIRO: Egypt’s army threatened Thursday to turn its guns on those who use violence, its starkest warning yet ahead of what both sides expect will be a bloody showdown in the streets between supporters and opponents of deposed President Mohammad Morsi.

 

An army official said the military had issued an ultimatum to Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, giving the Islamist group until Saturday to sign up to a plan for political reconciliation which it has so far spurned.

 

The army has summoned Egyptians into the streets for Friday and made clear it intends the day to mark a turning point in its confrontation with the followers of Morsi, the elected leader the generals removed on July 3.

 

The Brotherhood, which has maintained a street vigil for a month with thousands of followers demanding Morsi’s return, has called its own counter-demonstrations across the country in a “day to remove the coup.”

 

Both sides have dramatically escalated rhetoric ahead of Friday’s demonstrations. The Brotherhood accused the army of pushing the nation toward civil war and committing a crime worse than destroying Islam’s holiest site.

 

The army issued its warning in a statement posted on a Facebook page. It will not “turn its guns against its people,” the statement said, “but it will turn them against black violence and terrorism which has no religion or nation”.

 

A military official said the army had given the Brotherhood 48 hours from Thursday afternoon to join the political process. He did not reveal what the consequences would be if the Brotherhood refused.

 

Army chief General Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi has called on Egyptians to take to the streets and give him a “mandate” to take action against the violence that has convulsed Egypt since he ousted its first freely elected president.

 

The Brotherhood, an Islamist movement that won elections after Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in 2011, says it is the authorities themselves that have stirred up violence to justify a crackdown with the goal of wiping the group out.

 

The main anti-Morsi youth protest group, which has rallied behind the army, said its supporters were taking to the streets to “cleanse Egypt.”

 

The West is increasingly alarmed at the course taken by Egypt, a strategic hinge between the Middle East and North Africa. Signaling its displeasure, the U.S. has delayed delivery of four F-16 fighter jets to Cairo. The White House Thursday urged the army to exercise “maximum restraint and caution.”

 

The United States has yet to decide whether to call the military’s takeover a “coup,” language that would require it to halt $1.5 billion it sends in annual aid, mostly for the army.

 

For weeks, the authorities have rounded up Brotherhood officials but tolerated its presence on the streets, with thousands of people attending its vigil demanding Morsi’s return.

 

That patience seems to have run out. Premier Hazem al-Beblawi, head of the interim Cabinet installed by the army, said there was escalating violence by increasingly well-armed protesters.

 

“The presence of weapons, intimidation, fear – this causes concern, especially when there are calls for many to come out tomorrow from different sides,” he told a news conference.

 

After a month in which close to 200 people have died in violence triggered by Morsi’s downfall, many fear the protests will lead to more bloodshed.

 

Past incidents of violence have tended to run through the night and into the following day. Another security official forecast violence beginning Friday night and stretching into Saturday, the period covered by the army’s ultimatum. “The history of Egypt will be written on those days,” said the official, part of a security establishment that accuses the Islamists of turning to violence.

 

The Brotherhood blames the violence on the authorities.

 

Morsi supporters camping on the streets of Cairo were stocking up on bandages and syringes Thursday and mounting guard with barricades, helmets and sticks.

 

“I expect a new massacre,” said Sarah Ahmad, sitting amid syringes and neatly stacked medical supplies outside the Rabaa Adawiya Mosque.“For the situation to reach the point where [Sisi] tries to get people to come out to give him cover so he can commit more butchery shows that his position is weak, that he has lost the support of the street,” she said.

 

Reiterating his group’s commitment to peaceful protest, senior Brotherhood politician Farid Ismail accused the security services of readying militias to attack Morsi supporters, adding that Sisi aimed to drag Egypt into civil war. “His definition of terrorism is anyone who disagrees with him,” Ismail told Reuters.

 

Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammad Badie issued a statement accusing Sisi of committing a crime worse than destroying the Kaaba – the site in Mecca to which all Muslims face when they pray – “brick by brick.”

 

But many Egyptians are no less passionately backing the army, determined to see the Brotherhood reined in. “There are men carrying guns on the street ... We will not let extremists ruin our revolution,” said Mohammad Abdel-Aziz, a spokesman for Tamarod, an anti-Morsi petition campaign that mobilized protests against his rule. “Tomorrow we will cleanse Egypt,” he told Reuters.

 

Sisi announced the nationwide rallies after a bomb attack on a police station in Mansoura, north of Cairo, in which a policeman was killed. Since Morsi’s ouster, hard-line Islamist groups have also escalated a violent campaign against the state in the lawless Sinai Peninsula, with daily attacks on the police and army.