In relentless campaign, Egypt arrests Muslim Brotherhood leader (Mohamed Badie)

Reuters ^ | 8/20/2013 | Tom Perry and Shadia Nasralla

[mojito]

Egypt's army-backed authorities detained the Muslim Brotherhood's leader on Tuesday, signaling their determination to crush the group and silence protests against the ousting of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.

The arrest of Mohamed Badie, 70, the Brotherhood's general guide, followed the bloody suppression of rallies demanding the reinstatement of Egypt's first freely elected president, who was toppled by the military last month.

Egypt is enduring the worst internal strife in its modern history, with about 900 people killed, including 100 police and soldiers, after security forces broke up protest camps by Mursi's supporters in the capital on August 14.

A spokesman for a pro-Brotherhood alliance put the death toll amongst its followers at about 1,400.

[....]

Badie was charged in July with incitement to murder in connection with protests before Mursi's ouster and is due to stand trial on August 25 along with his two deputies.

Footage shown on local media showed the bearded leader sitting grim-faced in a grey robe near a man with a rifle following his detention in Cairo in the early hours.

The release of the images seemed designed to humiliate the Brotherhood chief, whose arrest means the group's top echelon is now behind bars, with other leaders dropping out of sight.

[Liz]

Maybe-—maybe not.

Don’t underestimate the political savvy of the Egyptian military——they KNOW they have the support of hundreds of millions of Christians worldwide.

Any leader who will not defend Egypt’s purge of the MB should be VERY worried.

[GeronL]

how long has been since the MSM and Obama decided that MB is not a terrorist group?

[hummingbird]

"The release of the images seemed designed to humiliate the Brotherhood chief...."

Humiliation.

"Its a good thing".

[PapaBear3625]

In another article notes:

Sakr predicted that the Brotherhood would survive the latest blow, and make it back to politics within two or three years, because it would adjust, as it always has.

One key to its survival, he said, may be its vast and highly organized social welfare networks that made it popular in Egypt.

If those institutions remain intact, the Brotherhood may be able to weather state harassment in the long term.

"The organization is based on social relationships with families, neighbors, schools, hospitals, institutions and orphanages," said Sakr.

The Muslim Brotherhood is, like many such movements, an alliance between manipulative elites and the underclass, against the middle class. As long as it funnels food and money to underclass supporters, it will have an endless supply of thugs to help it impose its will (much like the Democrat Party).

The key is to locate and eliminate the sources of its funding.

[RedMDer]

FReepathon
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[Chad_the_Impaler]

Badie is the Brotherhood, the movement's spiritual and political head. Morsi is just a side-show.

I thought Khairat al-Shater was really calling the shots.

[mojito]

al-Shater was arrested in July, but before then he may have been making many of the day-to-day decisions, although officially a “deputy” of Badie. But Badie was a disciple of MB founder Sayyid Qutb, and hence a living embodiment of the Brotherhood.