Egypt’s army chief said political unrest was pushing the state to the brink of collapse – a stark warning from the institution that ran the country until last year as Cairo’s first freely elected leader struggles to curb bloody street violence.

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a US-trained general appointed by President Mohamed Morsi last year to head the armed forces, added in a statement yesterday that one of the primary goals of deploying troops in cities on the Suez Canal was to protect the waterway that is vital for Egypt’s economy and world trade.

General Sisi’s comments, published on an official army Facebook page, followed 52 deaths in the past week of disorder and highlighted the mounting sense of crisis facing Egypt and its Islamist head of state who is striving to fix a teetering economy and needs to prepare Egypt for a parliamentary election in a few months that is meant to cement the new democracy.

Violence largely subsided yester-day, although some youths again hurled rocks at police lines in Cairo near Tahrir Square.

It seemed unlikely that Sisi was signalling the army wants to take back the power it held for six decades since the end of the colonial era and through an interim period after the overthrow of former air force chief Hosni Mubarak two years ago.

But it did send a powerful message that Egypt’s biggest institution, with a huge economic as well as security role and a recipient of massive direct US subsidies, is worried about the fate of the nation, after five days of turmoil in major cities.

“The continuation of the struggle of the different political forces... over the management of state affairs could lead to the collapse of the state,” said General Sisi, who is also Defence Minister in the Government Morsi appointed.

He said the economic, political and social challenges facing the country represented “a real threat to the security of Egypt and the cohesiveness of the Egyptian state” and the army would remain “the solid and cohesive block” on which the state rests. Sisi was picked by Mursi after the army handed over power to the new President.