At a summit in Brussels, the European Union's 27 leaders said Egypt's "transition process must start now" and condemned this week's violence while issuing a veiled threat of suspending aid.
Thousands including families with children flowed over bridges across the Nile into Tahrir Square, a sign the movement was not intimidated after fending off storms of hurled concrete, metal bars and firebombs, fighters on horses and camels and automatic gunfire barrages.
In the wake of the violence, more details were beginning to emerge for a transition to democratic rule after Mubarak's nearly 30-year reign.
The Obama administration said it was discussing several possibilities with Cairo, including one for Mubarak to leave office now and hand over power to a military-backed transitional government.
Around 200,000 protesters demonstrated in the square in the largest gathering since the quarter-million who rallied Tuesday, holding up signs reading "Now!"
The crowd attended Friday prayers, followed by funeral prayers for the hundreds who fell to police bullets and attacks by pro-government agents. Prayers over, they chanted their message to Mubarak: "Leave! Leave! Leave!"
Mohammed Rafat Al-Tahtawi, the spokesman of state-run Al-Azhar Mosque, the country's pre-eminent Islamic institution, announced on Al Jazeera that he had resigned from his position to join the protesters.
In the afternoon, a group of Mubarak supporters gathered in a square several blocks away and tried to move on Tahrir, banging with sticks on metal fences to raise an intimidating clamor. But protesters throwing rocks pushed them back.
The Arabic news network Al Jazeera said a "gang of thugs" stormed its offices in continuation of attacks on journalists by regime supporters that erupted Thursday. It said the attackers burned the office and damaged equipment.
The editor of the Muslim Brotherhood's website, Abdel-Galil El-Sharnoubi, told the AP that policemen stormed its office Friday morning and arrested 10 to 15 of its journalists. Also clashes with sticks and fists between pro- and anti-government demonstrators erupted in two towns in southern Egypt.
Defense Minister Mohammed Hussein Tantawi — regarded by Washington as a key plank of any post-Mubarak administration — visited the square to appeal to demonstrators to give up their protest in the light of Mubarak's pledge earlier this week not to seek re-election. "The man (Mubarak) told you he won't stand again," Tantawi told the protesters flanked by troops.
He urged opposition leaders, including the supreme guide of the powerful Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Badie, to join talks with the government on political transition.
Various proposals for a post-Mubarak transition floated by the Americans, the regime and the protesters share some common ground, but with one elephant-sized difference: The protesters say nothing can be done before Mubarak leaves.
The 82-year-old president insists he will serve out the remaining seven months of his term to ensure a stable process. "You don't understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen if I step down now," Mubarak said he told President Barack Obama. He warned in an interview with ABC News that chaos would ensue.
But the Obama administration was in talks with top Egyptian officials about the possibility of Mubarak immediately resigning and handing over a military-backed transitional government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman.
Such a government would prepare the country for free and fair elections later this year, according to US officials speaking on condition of anonymity. The officials stressed that the United States is not seeking to impose a solution on Egypt but said the administration had made a judgment that Mubarak has to go soon if there is to be a peaceful resolution.
Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed El-Baradei, one of the leaders of the protest movement, laid out his scenario on Friday: a transitional government headed by a presidential council of two or three figures, including a military representative.
El-Baradei said he respects Suleiman as someone to negotiate with over the transition, but did not address whether he should have any presidential role.
The Egyptian Football Association said the country's football league has been suspended until a "return of stability" to the country.
Egypt told the United Nations it is unhappy with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's public criticism of the government and his calls for change, according to a spokeswoman for Egypt's UN mission. Ban this week urged Mubarak and his government to take "bold measures" to address the concerns of people demonstrating for change.
