Egypt's interior minister has dissolved the country's widely hated state security agency, which is accused in torture and other human rights abuses in the suppression of dissent against ousted Hosni Mubarak's nearly 30-year rule.

The new Interior Minister Maj. Gen. Mansour el-Essawy, a former Cairo security chief, says in a statement issued Tuesday that a new agency in charge of keeping national security and combatting terrorism will be formed.

Dismantling the agency was a major demand of the protest movement that led an 18-day uprising to oust Mubarak. Since he stepped down on Feb. 11, Egyptians have stormed the agency's main headquarters and other offices, seizing documents to keep them from being destroyed to hide evidence of human rights abuses.