CAIRO — Egypt on Tuesday disbanded the state security organization, a force of widely loathed agents whose blatant spying and use of torture helped drive the public revolt that led to the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak.

The announcement represented another milestone for protesters demanding that the most dreaded aspects of the former government be dismantled.

“We are now on the right path, moving from one victory to another,” Essam el-Erian, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, declared to widespread applause after sharing the news at a diverse political forum.

In the same statement in which the military government said it had disbanded the organization, officials also said that a new national security agency would replace the old one. This led to some suspicion that this was an exercise in creative rebranding rather than wholesale change.