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The death toll from the latest clashes between hard-line Sunni protesters and security forces in Egypt has risen to 17, a security official said Saturday, less than two weeks ahead of a key referendum on an amended constitution.
In what were the deadliest street battles in months, Cairo and other heavily populated residential areas on Friday witnessed hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood members and their supporters throw firebombs and rocks at security forces, who responded with water cannons and tear gas.
Health Ministry spokesman Mohammed Fathallah said 62 people were injured in the violence.
The security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said police arrested 258 protesters and confiscated homemade bombs, firearms, knives, fireworks and Molotov cocktails.
Among the security forces, 17 were injured in the clashes and three vehicles and a traffic office in Egypt's second largest city of Alexandria were set on fire, he said.
The streets were mostly calm on Saturday and Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim warned that the police "will not tolerate assaults on the safety of Egypt's citizens."
"The security apparatus will not leave Egypt hostage in the hands of the outlaws," he said during a visit to a security training headquarters.
The government has designated the Brotherhood a terrorist group, and is using the new classification to detain hundreds of Brotherhood supporters. It has also sought to drain its resources, ordering last week the seizure of assets of hundreds of non-governmental groups on suspicions of links to the Brotherhood. Hundreds of the group's leaders and businessmen have also had assets seized.
The Muslim Brotherhood has called for a boycott of the Jan. 14 and Jan. 15 referendum on the constitution drafted by a secular-leaning assembly and urged a "million man march."
"Continue your days of revolutionary rage and peaceful protest activities," the Brotherhood-led Anti-Coup Alliance said Friday night in making its call.
The Friday statement had a sectarian tone, accusing a Christian business tycoon and the founder of a liberal party of using militias against Brotherhood protesters.
The hard-line Sunni demonstrators have largely blamed the mass protests that called for Morsi's ouster on the country's Christians, who make up 10 percent of the population.
Along with the crackdown on the Brotherhood, the military-backed interim government appears determined to silence other secular-leaning activists.
Security forces have cracked down hard on demonstrators breaching the government's recent ban on protests without a permit, which authorities say is needed to bring back peace to the tumultuous streets after three years of political turmoil.
Suicide bombings have surged in Egypt since Morsi's ouster. While they have been concentrated in the volatile Sinai Peninsula, deadly assaults have also hit the capital and Nile Delta cities. Al-Qaeda-inspired group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis has claimed responsibility for most of the attacks.
On Saturday, one roadside bomb killed one soldier and wounded three civilians when it went off next to a military motorcade near the border town of Sheikh Zuweid. A second bomb was found in the same area and dismantled.
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