Egypt has arrested 16 men suspected of belonging to a small, banned Islamist group, propagating extremist ideas and possessing anti-government literature, security sources said on Wednesday. The men, mainly engineers and doctors, were arrested in Cairo over the last week and were to be detained for 15 days while authorities investigated links with a little-known banned group called al-Qutbieen. The group is named after radical Islamist ideologue Sayed Qutb, who was executed by Egypt in 1966. Qutb was a revolutionary Islamic thinker who called for war on “infidel” Arab regimes to bring Arab societies closer to Islam. Al-Qutbieen is thought to have limited membership. Security sources said the group believed Egyptian society had become “infidel,” but was not suspected of involvement in violence. Egypt has arrested hundreds of alleged Muslim militants since the September 11 attacks on the United States. Human rights groups accuse the government of using the war on terror to stifle political dissent, a charge the government denies. Full Story
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