Islamists call for uprising after Egypt killing of 51

AFP/Cairo

The Muslim Brotherhood, which has led demonstrations against Wednesday’s overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Mursi, said its supporters were “massacred” by troops and police during dawn prayers in Cairo.

The military blamed “terrorists”, while witnesses, including Brotherhood supporters at the scene, said security forces fired only warning shots and teargas, and that “thugs” in civilian clothes carried out the shootings.

The US called on the Egyptian army to exercise “maximum restraint”, while also condemning “explicit” Brotherhood calls to violence.

The Islamist movement’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, had called for “an uprising by the great people of Egypt against those trying to steal their revolution with tanks” because of yesterday’s killings.

It urged “the international community and international groups and all the free people of the world to intervene to stop further massacres... and prevent a new Syria in the Arab world”.

But White House spokesman Jay Carney said an immediate cutoff in military aid to Egypt “would not be in our best interests”, when asked whether Washington was reconsidering the $1.3bn it provides annually.

In response to the “massacre”, the conservative Islamist Al Nour party, which won almost a quarter of the votes in 2011-2012 parliamentary elections and had backed the army’s overthrow of Mursi, said it was pulling out of talks on a new government.

Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayyeb of the Cairo-based Al Azhar, Sunni Islam’s highest seat of learning, said he would “remain in seclusion” until the bloodletting ends “and those behind it take responsibility”.

The army-appointed interim president, Adly Mansour, set up a judicial commission of inquiry into the killings.

The bloodshed happened outside the headquarters of the elite Republican Guard, which the Brotherhood accuses of betraying Mursi, Egypt’s first freely elected president.

Islamists hurled stones at the security forces who responded with teargas.

“Mursi supporters were praying while the police and army fired live rounds and teargas at them,” said the Brotherhood.

Emergency services chief Mohamed Sultan told the official Mena news agency at least 51 people were killed and 435 wounded.

Emotions ran wild as people searched for the names of missing loved ones on a list of the dead in hospital, where dozens of bodies were laid on the bloody floor of a makeshift morgue.

The army said “armed terrorists” tried to storm the base, killing one security officer and critically wounding six.

It later warned it would not allow anyone to threaten national security, reiterated a call for protesters to stay away from military installations and urged them to end their sit-ins.

A security official said prosecutors later ordered the closure of the FJP’s Cairo headquarters after police discovered weapons they alleged would be used against Mursi opponents.

The violence came just hours before caretaker president Mansour had been due to name his interim prime minister.

The military, which overthrew Mursi after millions took to the streets on June 30 demanding that he resign, has come under mounting international pressure to swiftly install a civilian administration to oversee a rapid return to elected government.

But Al Nour said it would no longer take part in talks on such an administration “in response to the massacre outside the Republican Guard”.

It had already voiced strong opposition to the appointment of prominent liberal Mohamed ElBaradei as interim premier.