Egypt in state of emergency as clashes leave 235 dead; ...Vice-President Mohamed ElBaradei resigns

Riot police backed by armoured vehicles, bulldozers and helicopters Wednesday swept away two encampments of supporters of ousted president Mohammed Morsi, setting off running street battles in Cairo and other Egyptian cities. 

At least 235 people were killed nationwide, many of them in the crackdown on the protest sites.

Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and pro-reform leader in the interim government, resigned in protest over the assaults as the military-backed leadership imposed a monthlong state of emergency and nighttime curfew.

At least 235 people were killed in all, including at least 43 police, and 2,000 wounded, a health official said, in fierce clashes that spread beyond Cairo to towns and cities around Egypt. Deposed president Mohamed Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood said the death toll of what it called a "massacre" was far higher.

While bodies wrapped in carpets were carried to a makeshift morgue near the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, the army-backed rulers declared a one-month state of emergency, restoring to the military the unfettered power it wielded for decades before a pro-democracy uprising toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said 43 police were among the dead. Security forces had completely cleared two protest camps in the capital and would not tolerate any further sit-ins, he said, vowing to restore Mubarak-era security.

Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi defended the use of force, condemned by the United States and European governments, saying the authorities had no choice but to act to end "the spread of anarchy".

"We found that matters had reached a point that no self-respecting state could accept," he said in a televised address.

The authorities imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in Cairo and several other cities including Alexandria, Egypt's second city on the Mediterranean coast.

The use of force prompted Mohamed ElBaradei, a former U.N. diplomat and the most prominent liberal supporter of Mursi's overthrow, to resign as vice president, saying the conflict could have been resolved by peaceful means.

"The beneficiaries of what happened today are those call for violence, terrorism and the most extreme groups," he said.

Thousands of Mursi's supporters had been camped at two major sites in Cairo since before he was toppled on July 3, and had vowed not to leave the streets until he was returned to power.

The assault, ending a six-week stand-off, defied international pleas for restraint and a negotiated political solution. Straddling the Suez Canal, a vital global trade route, Egypt is a key U.S. ally at the heart of the Middle East and was the first Arab state to make peace with Israel.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon all deplored the use of force and called for the state of emergency to be lifted as soon as possible.