Egypt Arrests 62 Islamists in Bomb Plot

Egypt has arrested 62 Islamists in a continuing crack-down on dissent, but interestingly enough the Islamists were targeting a pro-Democracy group and leader with a car bomb with aid from foreign groups. [ed: most likely these are Muslim Brotherhood members arrested, and probable source of the aid was Al Qaeda; I could be wrong here but it’s my operative assumption for the moment.]

From Gulf Times:

CAIRO: Egypt has detained 62 Islamists accused of plotting to blow up a pro-democracy lobby group in Cairo headed by Egyptian dissident Saadeddin Ibrahim, who is now in exile abroad, security sources said yesterday.
The sources said the men, accused of belonging to an Islamist group they called Takfir and Higra, were arrested over the past month on suspicion of plotting to blow up the Ibn Khaldoun Centre for Development Studies.
The sources said the men were motivated by anti-US sentiment. The Ibn Khaldoun Centre is led by sociologist Saadeddin Ibrahim, a US-Egyptian dual citizen who has pushed for greater political freedoms in Egypt and who was jailed in 2002 on charges including damaging Egypt’s reputation abroad.
The arrests coincided with an escalating crackdown on political dissent in Egypt that has targeted journalists, rights groups and political opposition movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood.
The director of the Ibn Khaldoun Centre, Ahmed Rizk, said he had received no formal notice from the government about the arrests but planned to increase security around the centre.
Security sources said the men, who have not yet been formally charged but were in custody pending an investigation, denied the accusations.
Over the years the Egyptian authorities have detained several groups of what they call extremists on suspicion of planning acts of violence. But some of the cases have never gone to trial and the suspects have been freed.

Takfir and Higra are terms adopted by many groups the past years, it follows the Qutbist belief that the Muslim world is largely Takfir, and no better that Kaffirs, subject to war and death. This is the evil means by which they justify murdering the ummah, they are the Neo-Takfiris and they came to be before the Neocons.