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Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood vowed
Thursday to continue its "peaceful"
resistance against the country's
military until ousted Islamist President
Mohammed Morsi is reinstated, as
thousands rallied at a mosque in
Cairo.
The statement came a day after
Egypt's military-backed government
tightened its crackdown on the
Brotherhood, ordering the arrest of its
spiritual leader in a bid to choke off
the group's campaign to reinstate
Morsi, now held at an undisclosed
Defense Ministry facility.
The Brotherhood is outraged by the
overthrow of Morsi and demands
nothing less than his release from
detention and his reinstatement as
president.
"We will continue our peaceful
resistance to the bloody military coup
against constitutional legitimacy," the
Brotherhood said. "We trust that the
peaceful and popular will of the
people shall triumph over force and
oppression."
Morsi was Egypt's first freely elected
president. He was ousted by the
military on July 3, following a wave of
protests by millions of Egyptians who
took to the streets to call for his
removal.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
expressed concern Thursday about
the demonstrations and arrest
warrants for Muslim Brotherhood
members, Reuters reports.
He said in a phone call with Egypt
Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamal
Amr that there is "no place for
retribution or for the exclusion of any
major party or community in Egypt."
U.S. State Department Jen Psaki said
Thursday that "the arrests we have
seen over the past several days
targeting specific groups are not in
line with the national reconciliation
that the interim government and the
military say they are pursuing."
The Brotherhood also denounced the
assassination attempt against Maj.
Gen. Ahmed Wasfi in the Sinai town of
Rafah, near the border with Gaza,
saying the group adheres to peaceful
measures in line with what it says are
the teachings of Islam.
Gunmen in a pickup truck opened fire
on Wasfi's convoy late Wednesday,
drawing fire from the accompanying
troops, security officials said. The
commander escaped unharmed but a
5-year-old girl was killed in the
clashes, said the officials, speaking on
condition of anonymity because they
were not authorized to speak to the
media. One gunman was arrested.
The Brotherhood denounced the
warrants for the arrest of Mohammed
Badie and nine other leading Islamists
for inciting violence that left dozens
dead in Cairo on Monday, saying
"dictatorship is back" and insisting it
will never work with the interim rulers.
Leaders of the Brotherhood are
believed to be taking refuge
somewhere near a continuing sit-in by
the group's supporters at the Rabaah
al-Adawiya Mosque in eastern Cairo,
but it is not clear if Badie also is there.
Security agencies have already jailed
five leaders of the Brotherhood,
including Badie's powerful deputy,
Khairat el-Shaiter, and shut down its
media outlets.
The prosecutor general's office said
Badie, another deputy, Mahmoud
Ezzat, senior member Mohammed El-
Beltagy and popular preacher Safwat
Hegazy are suspected of instigating
Monday's clashes with security forces
outside a Republican Guard building
that killed 54 people — most of them
Morsi supporters — in the worst
bloodshed since he was ousted.
The Islamists have accused the troops
of gunning down protesters, while the
military blamed armed backers of
Morsi for attempting to storm a
military building.
The arrest warrants highlight the
armed forces' zero-tolerance policy
toward the Brotherhood, which was
banned under authoritarian leader
Hosni Mubarak.
"This just signals that dictatorship is
back," said Brotherhood spokesman
Ahmed Aref. "We are returning to
what is worse than Mubarak's regime,
which wouldn't dare to issue an arrest
warrant of the general leader of the
Muslim Brotherhood."
The Brotherhood's refusal to work
with the new interim leaders
underscored the difficulties they face
in trying to stabilize Egypt and bridge
the deep fissures that have opened in
the country during Morsi's year in
office.
