Not so much backing down as switching tactics. The demonstrators in Cairo's Tahrir square are now under assault from what the news is describing as "pro-government demonstrators", who are throwing stones. They're marching with slogans like "thirty years of stability, nine days of anarchy", but things only turned violent when they showed up. There are multiple reports of these people being found to be bearing police IDs.
Perhaps Mubarak's idea is to say, "it's me or this chaos." But it may very well be his police (otherwise invisible over the past few days) that are creating the chaos...
EDIT: U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon seems to think that's what's going on; he was just on al-J English saying that violence against peaceful demonstrators is unacceptable...
For a little added clarity, said organic demonstrators who happen to possess police IDs charged into the crowd and started beating people. On horseback. Some are throwing molotov cocktails into the crowd indiscriminately.
Like you said, the goal is chaos, which can then be blamed on the demonstrators.
It seems like no coincidence that the internet came back on just for these pro-goverment supporters to organize out of nowhere. Watching this all on al-J has been surreal...
it's equally possible to come up with other non causal correlations. Sometimes things just progress and are utterly unrelated. Seeing patterns where there aren't any is a human survival characteristic.
Latest crazy development: anti-mubarak protesters using laser beams as defense to blind pro-mubarak supporters trying to throw molotov cocktails. This just gets more and more insane/interesting...
Perhaps Mubarak's idea is to say, "it's me or this chaos." But it may very well be his police (otherwise invisible over the past few days) that are creating the chaos...
EDIT: U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon seems to think that's what's going on; he was just on al-J English saying that violence against peaceful demonstrators is unacceptable...