Egypt’s security forces arrest opposition leaders

AFP.

CAIRO. Egyptian security forces arrested several leaders of the opposition Moslem Brotherhood in a pre-dawn swoop yesterday, ratcheting up pressure on the Islamists ahead of elections this year.

In a series of raids carried out across the country, 13 members of the Brotherhood were rounded up including its deputy chief, Mahmud Ezzat, who was taken from his Cairo home, the group’s lawyer said.

Senior Brotherhood members Essam Erian and Abdel Rahman el-Berr were also detained, lawyer Abdel Moneim Abdel Maksud said in a statement posted on the group’s website.

The attorney, citing initial reports, said 10 other Brotherhood members were also arrested in other raids, including in the coastal city of Alexandria, the southern province of Asyut and the Nile Delta.

A security official who declined to be named confirmed the arrests in a brief statement to AFP, saying those rounded up "are accused of membership in an outlawed group."

The lawyer said the Brotherhood believed that more of its members were arrested in the operation.

"This campaign of arrests is unjustified and we expect that more people have been arrested as Brotherhood lawyers are still receiving the names of those detained from the various provinces," the lawyer said.