Deadly clashes continue

CAIRO (AP):Egyptian authorities are considering disbanding the Muslim Brotherhood group, a government spokesman said yesterday, once again outlawing a group that held the pinnacle of government power just more than a month earlier.

The announcement came after security forces broke up two sit-in protests last week by those calling for the reinstatement of President Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood leader deposed in a July 3 coup.

The clashes killed more than 600 people that day and sparked protests and violence that killed 173 people last Friday alone.

Cabinet spokesman Sherif Shawki said that Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi, who leads the military-backed government, assigned the Ministry of Social Solidarity to study the legal possibilities of dissolving the group. He didn't elaborate.

The Muslim Brotherhood group, founded in 1928, came to power a year ago when its Morsi was elected in the country's first free presidential elections.

The election came after the overthrow of autocrat Hosni Mubarak in a popular uprising in 2011.

Last Wednesday, security authorities swept through the two protest camps, leaving hundreds killed and thousands others injured.

The violent crackdown sparked days of street violence across the country where Islamist supporters stormed and torched churches and police stations.

In the most recent stand-off, Egyptian security forces exchanged heavy gunfire yesterday with armed men at top of a minaret of a Cairo mosque.

The security forces fired tear gas, stormed the mosque and rounded up hundreds of Islamists supporters of Morsi who had been barricaded inside overnight.

The confrontations last Friday - around a Brotherhood call for a 'Day of Rage' - killed at least 173 people, with 1,330 people wounded in the protests.