(Reuters) – Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood said on Thursday it would bring down the “military coup” but stressed it remained committed to a peaceful struggle, despite the heavy loss of life when government forces broke up its protest camps.
The crackdown on Wednesday defied Western appeals for restraint and a peaceful, negotiated settlement to Egypt’s political crisis following the military’s removal of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi last month, prompting international statements of dismay and condemnation.
“We will always be non-violent and peaceful. We remain strong, defiant and resolved,” Brotherhood spokesman Gehad El-Haddad wrote on his Twitter feed. “We will push (forward) until we bring down this military coup,” he added.
Security forces struggled to clamp a lid on Egypt after the worst nationwide bloodshed in decades, although a curfew largely held in Cairo overnight.
Islamists clashed with police and troops who used bulldozers, teargas and live fire on Wednesday to clear out two Cairo sit-ins that had become a hub of Muslim Brotherhood resistance to the military after it deposed Mursi on July 3.
The clashes spread quickly, and a health ministry official said about 300 people were killed and more than 2,000 injured in fighting in Cairo, Alexandria and numerous towns and cities around the mostly Muslim nation of 84 million.
