At least 34 people have been killed
in a shooting incident in Cairo, say officials and the Muslim Brotherhood, amid
continuing unrest over the removal of President Mohammed Morsi.
The Brotherhood says its members
were fired on while they were holding a sit-in at a Presidential Guard
barracks.
The army said a "terrorist
group" had tried to storm the barracks.
Mr Morsi, Egypt's first Islamist
president, was ousted by the army on Wednesday after mass protests.
Dozens of people have been killed
since the unrest began last weekend.
Mr Morsi is believed to be held at
the Presidential Guard Club, in the eastern Nasr City district of the capital.
His supporters - many of them
members of the Muslim Brotherhood - have been staging a sit-in there since late
last week demanding his reinstatemen
After Monday morning's violence, the
hardline Salafist Nour party - which had supported Mr Morsi's removal - said it
was withdrawing from talks to choose an interim prime minister, describing
Monday morning's incident as a "massacre".
'Weapons seized'
The Muslim Brotherhood, the movement
Mr Morsi comes from, said the army raided the sit-in at about 04:00 (02:00 GMT)
as many of the protesters were performing dawn prayers.
"The protesters were taken
unawares and the troops used live ammunition, bird shot and tear gas,"
protester Alaa el-Hadidi told the BBC.
Mahmud al-Shilli told the AFP news
agency that troops had used tear gas but that a group of men in civilian
clothing had then opened fire.
"The thugs came from the side.
We were the target," he told AFP.
But in a statement read on state
media, the army blamed the shooting on "an armed terrorist group"
which had tried to storm the barracks.
It said an army officer was among
those killed and that a number of others were wounded, some critically.
The statement said some 200 people
had been arrested and were found to have large amounts of weapons, ammunition
and petrol bombs.
Cable television channels in Egypt
broadcast images of dead and injured people being taken to the Rabaa al-Adawiya
mosque, where Brotherhood supporters have been based.
The BBC's Jim Muir in Cairo says
that despite the conflicting reports, it is clear that blood has been shed,
which will aggravate an already critical situation.
The withdrawal of the Nour party
will also set back efforts to appoint a new prime minister, our correspondent
adds.
Party spokesman Nadder Bakkar said
Nour had "decided to withdraw immediately from all negotiations in
response to the massacre".
Though the Islamist party had backed
the army-led "roadmap" to new elections, it had been wary of the
Muslim Brotherhood becoming isolated.
It had blocked the appointment of
two potential prime ministers it thought would not include the movement in the
political process.
Mr Morsi was replaced on Thursday by
Adly Mansour - the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court. He has pledged to
hold elections soon, but has as yet given no date for them.
The army has insisted it does not
want to remain in power.
On Sunday, tens of thousands of both
supporters and opponents of Mr Morsi rallied in many Egyptian cities.
