Police forces fired teargas and gunshots outside the Syrian Embassy in Cairo on Tuesday night after protesters seized a police truck, briefly holding an officer who was trapped inside.
The demonstrators responsible said they had captured the police officer because five among them had been arrested. The officer was released shortly after he was taken.
A group of Syrian youth had organized a march from Tahrir Square, which has been housing a Syrian opposition tent for months now, to the embassy to pressure President Mohamed Morsy to live up to the speech he delivered last Thursday acknowledging the Syrian people's struggle for freedom.
During his speech at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran, Morsy attacked the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and called on member states to support the Syrian opposition.
Clashes broke out suddenly Tuesday evening when protesters threw molotov cocktails and rocks at policemen, and the officers responded by chasing them.
A 17-year-old protester told Egypt Independent that he came to Cairo after fleeing Damascus last month after many of his friends were slaughtered in the ongoing civil war. The protester said that he had been an informant in Syria for the Free Syrian Army, which had helped to smuggle him across the border after the Syrian army shot him in the leg.
Most of the protesters are youth, which was also the case in a similar incident in July when demonstrators clashed with security forces outside the Syrian Embassy.
In July, demonstrators marched to the embassy near the Corniche in Garden City to celebrate a bombing which had killed high-ranking members of the Assad regime, including the defense minister. Violence broke out after protesters attempted to raise the FSA flag over the embassy. Qasr al-Nil prosecutors said 14 people were injured in the clashes, and 17 people were arrested in connection with the incident and later released on bail.
In February, Egypt recalled its ambassador to Syria in protest against Assad’s violent crackdown, a move that spurred Syria to recall its ambassador from Cairo shortly thereafter.
That same month Syrian activists stormed an office in the embassy, ransacking it and setting fire to its ground floor.
