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| By Marwa Awad and Alexander Dziadosz |
Al Arabiya television said the army would make "an important statement in a short while" but gave no further details.
Increasingly sour confrontation after 17 days of unrest has raised fears of violence in the most populous Arab nation, a key U.S. ally in an oil-rich region where the chance of disorder spreading to other repressive states has troubled world markets.
U.S. President Barack Obama also sounded less than satisfied by Mubarak's latest concessions, saying he must explain changes he was making and do more to offer a path towards democracy.
For some hours on Thursday, following a military communique that many read as an army move to strip the 82-year-old former general of the power he has held for 30 years, rallies in Cairo and other cities turned festive in anticipation that Mubarak was about to resign in a televised address to the nation.
Within minutes of that broadcast starting, however, they were waving shoes and jeering as the president launched into a lengthy explanation of his own role in supervising a review of constitutional arrangements before he would step down, as he had said last week, at a presidential election due in September.
He praised the young protesters who have derided him as a corrupt and brutal dictator -- "your demands are legitimate and just" -- and sympathised with families of the 300 or more killed by his forces -- "I have felt all the pain you have felt." And, finally, he said he would transfer powers to his new deputy.
Vice President Omar Suleiman, a 74-year-old former intelligence chief who has maintained close relations with the United States and Israel, later appeared on television himself to promise a "road map" to democratic elections.
"NO TO MUBARAK"
However, demonstrators, who two weeks ago could scarcely have dreamt of winning such concessions, were not satisfied and said they would continue, potentially in their hundreds of thousands, to press for Mubarak's immediate departure and an end to the military-dominated system in place for six decades.
"No to Mubarak. No to Suleiman. One is an agent and the other a coward," chanted protesters camped out again overnight in central Cairo's Tahrir, or Liberation, Square.
Some tried to march towards some of Mubarak's presidential residences in Cairo but army roadblocks barred their way with barbed wire. The army has been on the streets for two weeks, since police attacked protesters on January 28 and then pulled back. Troops have pledged to protect the right to demonstrate.
However, the lengthening showdown may test that resolve, with many Egyptians eager to end the economic disruption of the protests and the army command keen to show it can impose order.
Soldiers appeared to let some 200 people through to demonstrate outside the state broadcasting building overnight.
"My great fear is that if the demonstrations don't end that the military begins to split over this. You may have younger commanders who don't want to go down with the ship," said Elliott Abrams, a former U.S. deputy national security adviser.
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