Military tanks deployed in Cairo

Egypt's army has deployed tanks outside the presidential palace after a night of deadly clashes between opponents and supporters of President Mohamed Morsi.

Four tanks and three armoured personnel carriers were stationed metres from the front gate of the palace in northern Cairo as hundreds of Morsi's partisans chanted slogans in support of the president early on Thursday.

At least five people have been killed and over 440 people injured in the Egyptian capital as pro- and anti-government protesters clashed near the presidential palace on Wednesday evening, the health ministry said.

Fighting continued into the early morning on Thursday with fires burning in the streets where the opposing sides threw stones and petrol bombs at each other.

"No to dictatorship," Morsi's opponents chanted, while their rivals chanted: "Defending Morsi is defending Islam."

Riot police were sent in to break up the violence on Wednesday, in which about 350 people were injured.

The opposition is demanding Morsi rescind a decree giving him nearly unrestricted powers and shelve a disputed draft constitution that the assembly passed hurriedly last week.

The streets of the capital are now reported to be calm following the earlier violence that left at least three people dead and hundreds injured.

Egypt is seeing growing unrest over a controversial draft constitution.

The government insists that a referendum will go ahead this month.

Supporters of Mr Morsi responded to a call to rally outside the presidential palace, in the suburb of Heliopolis, on Wednesday afternoon.

The mainly secular opponents of the president were already staging a sit-in protest there, after tens of thousands of them besieged the palace on Tuesday.

Stones and petrol bombs were thrown and there were reports of gunfire as Morsi supporters dismantled some of the tents set up by their opponents.

The Brotherhood later called on all sides to "withdraw at the same time and pledge not to return there given the symbolism of the palace".

Disorder was also reported in other cities, with Muslim Brotherhood offices attacked in Ismailia and Suez.

While protesters battled outside, Vice President Mahmoud Mekki held a news conference inside the palace and tried to calm the situation.

He urged the opposition to rein in street protests, and said political groups could agree on a plan to amend contentious articles after a new parliament is elected in 2013. He called for "communication between political forces" on the document.

"There must be consensus," he said. "There is real political will to pass the current period and respond to the demands of the public."

A group of prominent opposition leaders, including Mohamed ElBaradei, Hamdeen Sabbahi and Amr Moussa, held a press conference in Cairo on Wednesday night and dismissed Mekki's offer. ElBaradei said the opposition is open to dialogue, but not until Morsi revokes his decree.

All three men blamed Morsi for the violence outside the presidential palace. "He has lost the moral legitimacy to lead Egypt," said Sabbahi, who placed third in the presidential election earlier this year.

But the Muslim Brotherhood quickly turned around and blamed their opponents for the clashes. Gehad el-Haddad, a senior adviser to the Freedom and Justice Party, accused the three opposition leaders of "inciting violence".