Cairo: Egyptian authorities have arrested 13 members of the Muslim Brotherhood on suspicion of planting bombs around the Suez Canal to disrupt shipping, security sources said on Monday.
The waterway, the fastest shipping route between Europe and Asia, is a vital source of hard currency for Egypt, particularly since the 2011 uprising that toppled veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak and scared off tourists and foreign investment.
Egypt’s government has escalated rhetoric against the Brotherhood since the assassination of the country’s top prosecutor last week.
The security sources said the arrested men formed a 13-member cell that included an employee at the Suez Canal Authority.
Prosecutors had ordered that they be detained for 15 days and said they had planted bombs in areas including sanitation and electricity facilities as well as on beaches, the security sources said.
No one at the prosecutors’ office was immediately available to comment.
The army in 2013 toppled president Mohammad Mursi of the Brotherhood following mass protests against his rule and Al Sissi’s government has since declared the Brotherhood a terrorist group.
Security forces cracked down on Mursi’s supporters after he was ousted.
Last week Egyptian security forces stormed an apartment in a western Cairo suburb and killed nine men who they said were armed, the interior ministry said.
Among the dead was a prominent lawyer for the Brotherhood and a former lawmaker. The Brotherhood denied that the men were armed and said they were holding an “organisational meeting”.
Egypt does not distinguish between the Brotherhood and groups such as Daesh, which has an affiliate in Sinai, epicentre of an Islamist militant insurgency that has killed hundreds of soldiers and police since Mursi’s fall.
