At least 34 people have been killed in a shooting incident in Cairo, officials and the Muslim Brotherhood said, amid continuing unrest over the removal of President Mohammed Morsi.
The Brotherhood said its members were fired on while they were holding a sit-in at a Presidential Guard barrack.
But the army said a “terrorist group” had tried to storm the barracks.
BBC reports that Mr. Morsi, an Islamist and Egypt’s first freely elected president, was ousted by the army last week 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 movement he comes from – have been staging a sit-in there demanding his reinstatement.
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 the shooting incident as a “massacre.”
There were conflicting reports from Cairo over how the violence had unravelled in the early hours of Monday morning.
The Muslim Brotherhood said the army raided its sit-in at about 04:00 (02:00 GMT) as protesters were performing dawn prayers.
