The head of Egypt's military council has said that the country's decades-old state of emergency will be lifted on Wednesday, the first anniversary of the uprising that brought down president Hosni Mubarak.

"I have taken a decision to end the state of emergency starting on the morning of January 25, 2012," Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi said in a televised address on Tuesday, adding that it would still apply in dealing with cases of "thuggery".

He did not elaborate what that term meant.

Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros, reports from Cairo.