Egyptian soldiers with batons have charged into Tahrir Square, the focal point of anti-military demonstrations in the capital, on the second day of violent clashes with protesters.

The renewed fighting on Saturday came as Egypt's health ministry reported nine people were killed and more than 350 others injured since Friday when soldiers stormed an anti-military protest camp outside the parliament building, a short distance from Tahrir.

Soldiers stormed into Tahrir square on Saturday, beating protesters, as thick black smoke filled the skies following the eruption of a fire in the area around Egypt's upper house of parliament.

Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh, reporting from Cairo, said several tents in the square that had been used by protesters had been also set alight.

Egypt's prime minister, Kamal el-Ganzouri, addressed the violence in a news conference on Saturday, saying the fighting was an attack on the country's revolution.

"This is not a revolution, but a counter-revolution," he said. "Those who are in Tahrir Square are not the youth of the revolution."

He added that his government would not confront peaceful demonstrations with any force, but he said protesters "threw rocks and destroyed everything they came across".

Al Jazeera's Rageh, who was at the press conference, said the "prime minister's promises have fallen flat, after the escalation of violence after his message".

Ugly scenes

The fighting, Cairo's first outbreak of violence since the start of elections on November 28, began after images were published online of the badly bruised face of an activist, who said he had been detained by military police at a sit-in outside cabinet the previous day and beaten.

The news infuriated protesters, who set cars alight and threw stones at security forces.

Security forces responded by firing shots in the air before storming the camp, beating demonstrators with sticks and hurling chunks of concrete from the roof of the parliament building.

"Very ugly scenes witnessed here throughout the day, including scenes of men in uniform perched on the rooftops of buildings, throwing whatever they can lay their hands on on protesters, including sheets of glass, bottles, rocks and at one point even furniture", our correspondent reported on Friday.

"Very unpleasant scenes, including some of these soldiers gesturing obscenely towards the protesters, and one of them even at one point urinating on the protesters gathered below," she said.

Protesters have been occupying the area in front of the cabinet office for more than two weeks, preventing Ganzouri and his cabinet from meeting there. They are demanding that the country's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) immediately cede authority to a civilian government.

The military council issued a statement blaming Friday's violence on the protesters, saying that the clashes were part of a conspiracy to derail the country's elections process, which is ongoing.

It denied that tear gas or live ammunition had been used, and said the issue would be transferred to the Egyptian prosecutor's office to be investigated.

The clashes came as Egypt ended its second round of voting in a long and complicated election process that began on November 28. Voting took place in parts of greater Cairo, Ismailiya and Suez in the east, Aswan in the south and in the Nile Delta regions in the north.