Brotherhood accuses Egyptian security forces of shooting dead dozens

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian security forces shot dead dozens of supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi on Saturday, witnesses said, days after the army chief called for a popular mandate to wipe out "violence and terrorism".

Men in helmets and black police fatigues fired on crowds gathered before dawn on the fringes of a round-the-clock sit-in near a mosque in northeast Cairo, Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood movement said.

"They are not shooting to wound, they are shooting to kill," said Brotherhood spokesman Gehad El-Haddad. "The bullet wounds are in the head and chest."

The bloodshed, near the military parade ground where President Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981, has rocked a country already struggling with the transition to democracy two years after Hosni Mubarak was swept from power.

A Muslim Brotherhood website said 120 people had been killed and some 4,500 injured. A Reuters reporter counted 36 bodies at one morgue, while health officials said there were a further 21 corpses in two nearby hospitals.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/violence-deepens-egypt-turmoil-deposed-leader-probed-murder-020435120.html