Mubarak's Gone! He Really Has Gone!

Hundreds of thousands of protesters exploded with joy as the hated Hosni Mubarak finally stepped down as Egyptian President, prompting Barack Obama to declare that the country 'will never be the same'.

After 18 days of demonstrations which had rocked this country and the world, the embattled leader bowed to an unstoppable wave of public pressure. The premier, who has been head of state for 29 years, has temporarily handed over power to the army until elections can be held.

President Obama hailed the resignation of Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak in a statement broadcast live from the White House.

'In stepping down, President Mubarak has responded to the Egyptian people's hunger for change,' he said. 'Today belongs to the people of Egypt.

'The people of Egypt have spoken. Their voices have been heard. And Egypt will never be the same,' he said.

But the U.S President - speaking just hours after Mubarak gave up his three decades of authoritarian rule - warned it was just the beginning of the country's path to democracy. He stressed there would be 'difficult times' and 'many questions' ahead.

'I'm confident the people of Egypt can find the answers,' he said.

'Egyptians have inspired us, and they've done so by putting the lie to the idea that justice is best gained by violence.

'For Egypt, it was the moral force of non-violence, not terrorism, not mindless killing, but non-violence, moral force, that bent the arc of history toward justice once more.'

He added that the Egyptian military had served patriotically and responsibly and now must ensure a transition that is 'credible in the eyes of the Egyptian people'.

He said that meant lifting Egypt's hated 30-year-old police powers laws, revising the constitution and enacting other safeguards to 'make this change irreversible' and set the path for free and fair elections.

He also said he was confident that a democratic Egypt can assert its role as an 'influential player' in the Middle East and beyond. Obama had issued a statement from Washington last night in which he challenged Mubarak, without directly naming him, to explain his actions and his plans for democracy.

And then events changed. Earlier tonight, as news of Mubarak's departure filtered through to protesters in Liberation Square and outside Mubarak’s palace several miles away, the crowd erupted.

‘The people ousted the regime,’ people chanted as they clapped and danced in the streets. ‘Goodbye. Goodbye.’

Others raised their hands in prayer as fireworks and car horns blazed and blared around the chaotic city. In London, David Cameron called for 'a move to civilian and democratic rule' and said that it was a 'really precious moment of opportunity.'.

Speaking on the steps of No 10, he said the new government should start to put in place 'the building blocks of a truly open, free and democratic society'.

Mubarak's resignation was the culmination of a day of dramatic development in which it was first claimed that he had fled the Egyptian capital to the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Then came the news that there was to be an announcement. As darkness fell over the square, the crowds waited with baited breath to discover the fate of their revolution and the country.

When a grim-faced Vice President Omar Suleiman finally appeared on state television his message was short and to the point. Mubarak had finally gone, ceding control of the state to the army.

‘In these grave circumstances that the country is passing through, President Hosni Mubarak has decided to leave his position as president of the republic,’ he said.

‘He has mandated the Armed Forces Supreme Council to run the state. God is our protector and succour.’

In Tahrir Square, the site of some of the most extraordinary scenes in the country’s history, a single man shouted above the crowd.

‘He’s gone,’ he yelled. ‘He’s gone,’ and the protesters – men, women and children who had occupied the square for 18 days – roared.

Men fell to their knees to kiss the ground. At the presidential palace, one rolled around on the grass. People wept, jumped, screamed and hugged each other with a shared joy they had never known. Cairo erupted in a cacophony of celebration: fireworks and car horns and gunshots in the air.

‘This is the happiest day in my generation,’ said Ali al-Tayab, a 24-year-old demonstrator who paid tribute to those who died in clashes with police and Mubarak supporters. ‘To the martyrs, this is your day.’

‘Finally we are free,’ said Safwan Abou Stat, a 60-year-old in the crowd of protesters at the palace. ‘From now on anyone who is going to rule will know that these people are great.’

Abdel-Rahman Samir, one of the youth organisers of the protests, said the protest movement would now open negotiations with the military over democratic reform but vowed protests would continue to ensure change is carried out.

'We still don't have any guarantees yet - if we end the whole situation now the it's like we haven't done anything,' he said. 'So we need to keep sitting in Tahrir until we get all our demands.'

But, he added: 'I feel fantastic. .... I feel like we have worked so hard, we planted a seed for a year and a half and now we are now finally sowing the fruits.'

At the presidential palace in Cairo, where demonstrators had gathered in the thousands, people flashed the V-for-victory sign and shouted, ‘Be happy, Egyptians, today is a feast’ and ‘He stepped down.’

Many prayed and declared: ‘God is great.’ In some neighbourhoods, women on balconies ululated with the joyous tongue-trilling used to mark weddings and births. Some sang the national anthem.

Mohammed el-Masry, who marched to the presidential palace, said he had spent the past two weeks living in the protest encampment at Tahrir Square.

‘We are going to Tahrir to celebrate,’ he said, weeping with joy. ‘We made it.’

Leading Egyptian democracy campaigner Mohamed ElBaradei cheered Mubarak's resignation.

'This is the greatest day of my life. The country has been liberated after decades of repression,'

The Nobel peace prize winner said he expects a 'beautiful' transition of power. Mubarak had sought to cling on to power even in the face of such huge protest.

In a television broadcast last night, the dictator had refused to step down, reiterating he would stay until elections had been held. The pronouncement prompted the biggest demonstrations to date.

Cairo was awash with a flood of humanity who refused to be stopped and every single inch of Tahrir Square was crammed with protesters as they held open air Friday prayers.

Earlier in the day, the Armed Forces Supreme Council - a body of top generals - vowed to guide the country to greater democracy.

In a statement hours before Suleiman's announcement, it said it was committed 'to sponsor the legitimate demands of the people and endeavour for their implementation within a defined timetable ... until achieving a peaceful transition all through a democratic society aspired by the people.'

He survived assassination attempts and wave after wave of Mideast crises, a solid ally of the West whose stable image reassured many Egyptians. Hosni Mubarak ended his presidency today as a symbol of what was wrong with Egypt: the repression, the corruption, the lost hopes of a swelling, impoverished class.

Mubarak, in power for nearly three decades, was such a fixture that his exit from power was hard to conceive for most Egyptians just a short time ago.Year after year, as the president aged and ailed, people watched his scripted appearances on television - the suit and tie, the wagging finger, the 'father of the nation' aura.

After protests and upheaval swept Egypt, Mubarak sought to portray himself as the only obstacle to chaos, as he had done successfully so many times in the past. Yet attacks by his supporters, who roamed central Cairo with impunity, suggested that violence lay at the core of his system.

As he clung to power, the status quo he personified became increasingly loathed. And as it turns out, beneath the stern facade of authority, the 82-year-old was a figure in steep decline, unable to check boiling currents of popular fury, or harness the history unfolding in his nation of 80 million - the largest in the Arab world.

A former pilot and air force general with a combative, stubborn streak, he took tentative steps toward democratic reform early in his presidency but pulled back toward the dictatorial style that eventually propelled the protests that began on January 25.

Assessments described Mubarak as a man deeply suspicious of reform. A 2009 cable from the US Embassy in Cairo, released by the secret-sharing WikiLeaks website, called him 'a tried and true realist, innately cautious and conservative,' and with 'little time for idealistic goals.'

Mubarak was long credited by his Western allies with keeping the peace with Israel and keeping Egypt free of the grip of Islamic extremism. In a searing experience that defined his outlook, he was sitting on a military viewing stand next to his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, when Islamic militants assassinated Sadat in 1981. A week later, with Egypt in trauma, Mubarak was president.

He lacked the charisma of his two predecessors, the peacemaker Sadat and the Arab nationalist, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and served in their shadows. He struggled with the problems that have bedevilled the Arab world: choking corruption, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and fighting militancy. Economic reforms spurred growth, but the fruits trickled only to a few.

He carved out a niche as a key negotiator on the Palestinian crisis, bolstered by billions in U.S. aid. He engineered Egypt's return to the Arab fold after nearly a decade out in the cold over its 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

Early on, Mubarak put down an insurgency by Muslim extremists, whose ranks had produced Sadat's assassins and some of the future al Qaida leaders. In the 1990s, he fought hard against another resurgence of Muslim militants whose attacks included the slaughter of dozens of foreign tourists at the temple city of Luxor.

Eli Shaked, who served as Israel's ambassador to Egypt from 2003-2005, described Mubarak as 'a strong presence, not charismatic but with a heavy body like a fighter bomber, and very level-headed.'

Mohammed Hosni Mubarak was born on May 4, 1928, in the village of Kafr el-Moseilha in the Nile delta province of Menoufia. His family, like Sadat's and Nasser's, was lower middle class.

After joining the air force in 1950, Mubarak moved up the ranks as a bomber pilot and instructor and rose to leadership positions. He earned nationwide fame as commander of the air force during the 1973 Middle East war, and was vice president when Sadat was assassinated - an attack Mubarak escaped with only a minor hand injury.

In his early days, Mubarak made popular moves that held up promise of a more open society, including freeing 1,500 politicians, journalists and clerics jailed during Sadat's last months in office.

But hopes for broader reform dimmed. Mubarak was re-elected in staged, one-man referendums in which he routinely won more than 90 per cent approval. He became more aloof, carefully choreographing his public appearances, and his authoritarian governance, buttressed by harsh emergency laws, fuelled resentment.

Age took its toll on the president, who was once an avid squash player with a consistent style that matched his personality. He became hard of hearing, and was so devastated by the death of a 12-year-old grandson in 2009 that he cancelled a trip to the United States. Last year, he had gallbladder surgery in Germany.

Egypt's influence in the Middle East, meanwhile, waned as the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah and their patron, Iran, gained momentum and followers. The growing profile of Turkey, a democracy led by an Islam-inspired government, also chipped away at Egypt's heavyweight stature in the region.

In 2005, Mubarak held the country's first contested presidential election, an event marred by charges of voter fraud and intimidation. He retrenched when opponents made gains in ensuing parliamentary elections, launching a harsh campaign of arrests against the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's biggest and best organised opposition group.

Before the protests began, Mubarak had been silent on whether he intended to seek re-election in September. But the quick rise of his son, Gamal, through the ruling party caused immense anxiety.

The fear that Mubarak was grooming Gamal, a wealthy businessman, to succeed him, left many Egyptians feeling trapped in the past, deprived of change and renewal. Then, the uprising in Tunisia delivered an electrifying message: an old order can be ousted.

Mubarak initially responded to protests by saying he would not seek another term, and his government said Gamal Mubarak would not run, either. But the president rejected demands that he step down immediately, telling ABC News that he'd like to leave but feared the country would sink deeper into chaos without him.

It was a persuasive argument for 29 years, but in 2011 it was overwhelmed by the cries of huge crowds in Cairo's Tahrir Square: 'Leave! Leave!'.