Brother of al-Qaida leader 'arrested'

The brother of al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri has been arrested in Egypt, officials say.

The official said that Mohammed al-Zawahri, leader of the ultraconservative Jihadi Salafist group, was detained at a checkpoint in Giza, the city across the Nile from Cairo.

The official declined to give further details.

Mohammed Al-Zawahri’s group espouses a hard-line ideology but was not clandestine prior to Egypt’s July 3 coup.

He was allied with ousted president Mohammed Morsi, an Islamist, whose supporters are now taking to the streets in protest at the killings of its supporters in a security crackdown last week.

Authorities said earlier that al-Zawahri had commanded insurgents in Sinai Peninsula.

The news comes after Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood said a son of its spiritual leader was killed during fierce clashes in central Cairo.

Hundreds of Islamist supporters of the country’s ousted president remained barricaded inside a mosque.

The group’s political arm said on its official website today that Mohammed Badei’s son Ammar was killed Friday, when the Muslim Brotherhood took to the streets in a Day of Rage – ignited by anger at security forces over clearing two sit-in camps earlier in the week, leaving hundreds dead.

Meanwhile, hundreds remained inside the al-Fatah mosque in Cairo today after barricading themselves inside overnight.

A Muslim cleric there said there were ongoing negotiations with the military to have protesters safely leave.