Cairo, Egypt (CNN) -- As thousands of Egyptians reveled in their improbable revolution, the nation's newly appointed military caretakers laid out priorities Saturday geared at establishing stability, though they revealed little to elucidate the future.
The Armed Forces Supreme Council, in charge after Friday's resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, said it was committed to a democratic process resulting in civilian rule, but urged respect for the reviled police forces that had brutally clashed with protesters in the early days of the uprising.
"The armed forces council calls on the people to cooperate with the policemen," Lt. Gen. Sami Anan said on state television. "We ask our policemen to adhere to their slogan: Police is at the people's service."
It was unclear whether the statement signaled a return of the police security apparatus, noticeably absent from the streets after the violent clashes and the deployment of the army.
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Anan, the armed forces chief of staff, also announced other measures geared toward establishing stability after the abrupt death of a 30-year dictatorship in the Arab world's most populous nation.
He said Egypt would still honor international treaties and commitments, a statement perhaps aimed at calming a jittery Israel that has quietly watched dramatic change unfold in its Arab ally.
Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1979. The Israelis on Saturday welcomed the Egyptian statement and Defense Minister Ehud Barak spoke on the phone with his Egyptian counterpart Hussein Tantawi, who heads the supreme council, the Israeli Defense Ministry said.
"The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is confident in Egypt's potential, institutions and people to successfully go through these difficult times," Anan said.
But as thousands of people still celebrated on the streets, the army's first statement since Mubarak's departure did little to spell out how long Egypt would remain under military rule.
"They want to see structural change," Parag Khanna of the Global Governance Initiative told CNN Saturday. "They want to see a change in the Constitution. They want to see democracy. That speech did not tell them any of those things."
Thousands of Egyptians were in a still electric Tahrir Square Saturday, vowing to stay there until, as one protester put it, "Egypt is ruled by a civil government, not a military one."
In Tahrir Square, crews collected garbage and towed away burned cars that had been used as barricades as clean-up efforts began in the area in and around the square.
A marble memorial was going up to remember those who died in the 18-day uprising. Human Rights Watch has documented 302 deaths, a number the monitoring group called conservative.
Protester Yehya Kheireldin said an "unspoken plan" had been reached between the military and a group of protest organizers to take down barricades and tents in Tahrir Square, even though some people wanted to hold out longer.
"It's time to start rebuilding the country," Kheireldin said, pointing to the hundreds of volunteers armed with brooms who are sweeping away the debris left by the sit-in.
Volunteers were repainting black and white striped street curbs around a monument by the Egyptian museum, which had been on the front line in street battles between Mubarak's foes and supporters.
When a brief scuffle broke out after the army rushed to tear down makeshift barricades, soldiers in riot gear asserted control within minutes. Three people were detained for allegedly harassing others but were expected to be released later.
Kheireldin said some protesters did not want to leave Tahrir Square because they had found "free food and a place to sleep." Others did not trust the new military government, but Khereldin said they were a minority.
When asked if Egypt had succeeded in fomenting change, Kheiredin replied: "The revolution has just begun."
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Barak Barfi, a research fellow at the New America Foundation, said a clear leader needed to emerge from the military council.
"We really don't know who's running the show behind the scenes," he told CNN from Cairo.
Tantawi, the head of the military's supreme council, has a controversial reputation among the armed forces and had been derided by midlevel officers as "Mubarak's poodle" for his fawning over the now-ousted president, according to U.S. diplomatic cables sent from the Cairo embassy in 2008 and published by WikiLeaks.
The Constitution allows for only two scenarios for a head of state to relinquish power. The first stipulates that if the president has to step aside temporarily, the vice president steps into the top role. That is what the regime briefly orchestrated Thursday.
If the office of the president is vacated or the president becomes permanently disabled, the Constitution states that the parliamentary speaker is to assume the role until new elections can be held. Those elections, in turn, must occur within 60 days.
In opting for a third way, which put all power in the hands of the military, the Mubarak regime in effect rendered the Constitution inoperable.
Shawee El-Sayed, an independent member of Egypt's parliament and an expert on the country's Constitution, said Mubarak's move to transfer power to the military left Suleiman without an official role.
"The next step the council must (decide) is whether or not to validate the Constitution -- otherwise there will be a constitutional vacuum," he said.
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said if the military wants to protect its self-interests, it has to help in a transition process to civilian rule.
"Otherwise," said Hayden, "they're going to see what's happened in the past 18 days repeated again and very likely not as peacefully."
A high-ranking Egyptian military official said the army's command has been discussing how to deal with Mubarak's government and when the next election would be held.
Saturday, Anan, the supreme council's spokesman, said the current government would remain in place until a new one could be formed. State television reported, citing a judiciary source, that several high-ranking government officials, including the former prime minister and interior minister, were facing lawsuits and were barred from traveling out of the country.
U.S. President Barack Obama, meanwhile, praised the Egyptian military for acting responsibly and said it now needs to help ensure a credible transition as it attempted to better gauge the unfolding situation.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, plans to visit key U.S. allies Israel and Jordan this weekend, a Pentagon official told CNN Saturday. Under Secretary of State Bill Burns was already in Jordan meeting with King Abdullah, the State Department said.
And U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates spoke with Tantawi on Saturday, the sixth phone conversation with the minister since the start of the Egypt uprising, a Defense Department spokesman said. It was the first call since Mubarak stepped down.
Among other things, Egyptian authorities need to set about "protecting the rights of Egypt's citizens, lifting the emergency law, revising the Constitution and other laws to make this change irreversible, and laying out a clear path to elections that are fair and free," Obama said.
But some analysts were sounding the alarm over the takeover by the military, which has suddenly become accountable for the nation. Analysts with Stratfor, a global intelligence company, said Egypt had essentially experienced a coup.
"Egypt is returning to the 1952 model of ruling the state via a council of army officers," the Stratfor statement said. "The question now is to what extent the military elite will share power with its civilian counterparts."
And Amnesty International warned that Mubarak's departure did not necessarily mean an end to the police state. Egypt's emergency laws, said the monitoring group, remain intact.
But even as officials hash out the details of Egypt's murky political future, its people power rippled throughout the region.
In the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, protesters chanted: "Yesterday Tunisia, today Egypt, tomorrow Yemen will open the prison."
Saturday, men wielding knives attacked the anti-government demonstrators, said Human Rights Watch.
And in restive Algeria, anti-government protesters chanted "Change the power." Security forces clashed with the crowds.
Saturday in Algiers and detained roughly 100 protesters, according to the opposition Algerian League for Human Rights.
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