President Morsi supporters attack opponents in Cairo

• Opposition is demanding Morsi rescind decrees giving him near unrestricted powers
• The two sides threw rocks at each other until police stepped in
• Controversial draft constitution will be put to a nationwide vote Dec. 15

CAIRO — Tens of thousands of supporters of Egyptian leader Mohammed Morsi took over the outside of the presidential palace Wednesday, some tearing down tents that had been put up by regime opponents during huge protests the past two days.

"All these people come to support Morsi against those who want to beat down the basic rules in Egypt," said Mohammad Anwar, an orthopedic surgeon, outside the presidential palace in Heliopolis, Cairo.

"These people you are seeing here are about one or two percent of those who support Morsi," he said. "Other people against Morsi want only their future, their rules, their aims -- just this -- but not the aims of all of Egypt."

Some anti-Morsi protesters confronted his supporters and the two sides threw rocks at each other until police stepped in to separate them. In the port city of Suez, the headquarters of Morsi's Freedom & Justice Party was set on fire and destroyed, the Muslim Brotherhood said Wednesday on Twitter.

The opposition is demanding Morsi rescind decrees giving him near unrestricted powers, such as exempting his decisions from judicial review, and shelve a disputed draft constitution that the president's Islamist allies passed last week.

Morsi has said he needed the powers to prevent the courts from ruling on the legitimacy of the draft constitution, which will allow for new elections. The country's high court dissolved the elected Lower House of the parliament earlier this year because it said the legislature was seated improperly.

He said the constitution will be put to a nationwide vote Dec. 15.

Supporters of the moves say Morsi was elected by a majority in Egypt and should be allowed to push his program through. They say the opponents are using the streets to overturn that verdict.

"We come here to support the presidential decree and the constitutional law," said Abdel Hady Abdel Azim, 65, from Shubra. "I support Morsi because he is a just and fair president, and the head of the revolution in Egypt."

People ate grilled corn and an Egyptian dish of grains and beans called koshary, held posters of Morsi and waved Egyptian flags as night fell. Several hundred feet away, anti-Morsi Egyptians gathered in camps.

Clashes broke out earlier Wednesday when supporters of Morsi marched to the palace to confront a few hundred of his opponents who were staging a sit-in following two days of protests that attracted more than 100,000 people. The supporters, who back Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, chased the protesters away and tore down their tents.

Protesters on each side prepared for a possible fight by collecting piles and bags of rocks on the perimeters of their gatherings.

Mohamed ElBaradei, a leading opposition advocate of reform and democracy, accused the president's supporters of a "vicious and deliberate" attack against peaceful demonstrators.

"This, in my view, is the end of any legitimacy this regime has," he told the Associated Press.

Mohammad Shawy, an engineer, said the way to handle opposition to Morsi is at the ballot box.

"People will have their say in voting -- God willing on the 15th -- and if people say yes to the constitution, done. If not then never mind and the president will make a new assembly and there will be a new (draft) constitution," he said.

Contributing: The Associated Press