CAIRO, 19 August 2007 — Egypt yesterday began questioning 16 leading members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood after their arrest in the latest clampdown on the Islamists, the country’s main opposition movement.

The men, including senior figures Essam Al-Aryan and Mahmoud Hussein, were arrested in a police swoop at the home of a fellow Brotherhood member in Cairo late on Friday. “This is yet another hard blow for us,” the organization’s No. 2, Mohammed Habib, said. Hundreds of members of the Brotherhood have been rounded up in recent weeks, many at summer camps the state says are used for training to “destabilize the nation.”

The 16 are expected to be charged with belonging to and financing a banned organization and holding a meeting to plan illicit activities, a judicial source said. The Brothers said they were arrested “at a routine meeting.” The source said the investigating magistrate would question the men, who can be held without charge for an initial period of 15 days, before deciding on the exact charges.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which describes itself as a moderate Islamic organization that wants to bring Islamic law to Egypt, has been outlawed since 1954.

The group holds more than a fifth of the seats in Egypt’s Parliament, but its representatives sit as independents because of its illegal status.

Considered a moderate, Aryan is part of the Brotherhood’s political bureau, while Hussein sits on the Orientation Council, the group’s other major leadership organ.

Aryan, a doctor who often serves as spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, has spent many years in prison since the 1970s, and was last released in December 2006, said another Brotherhood spokesman, Ibrahim Al-Houdaiby.

He said on the Brothers’ website that Aryan’s arrest “is a clear attempt by the regime to crack down on the moderate leaders of the Brotherhood who could push the group toward more moderate stances.”

“Some observers make distinctions between his discourse and that of other Brotherhood leaders ... and claim that Aryan presents a moderate facade for a group which is not that moderate,” Houdaiby said.

One of the organization’s new generation of leaders, Aryan was prevented on Friday from going to Istanbul on a trip sponsored by the doctors’ union which is controlled by the Brotherhood.

The group made a stunning breakthrough in the legislative elections of November and December 2005. Running as independents, Muslim Brotherhood members won 88 of 454 seats in the national parliament which is dominated by President Hosni Mubarak’s ruling party.

The latest arrests came as 40 other members — mainly businessmen — are being tried in a military tribunal, accused of financing a banned organization and money laundering.

A hearing took place earlier this month on a military base behind closed doors despite protests by rights groups barred from attending the politically charged trial, which is set to resume today.

The defendants — including the Brotherhood’s No. 3 leader, Khayrat Al-Shater — could face the death penalty if convicted.