Army to allow peaceful protests in Egypt

Appealing for conciliation, Egypt's military warned against revenge attacks after it toppled president Mohamed Morsi, even as police rounded up senior Islamists ahead of planned rallies by supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi today.

The military published the statement on its spokesman's Facebook page even as clashes broke out between Morsi's supporters and opponents in the Nile Delta that injured scores, ahead of the planned rallies, AFP reported.

Islamist militants killed a soldier in the Sinai peninsula early today, as several army and police positions came under machine gunfire and rockets.

Some militants in the peninsula had threatened a violent response following the ouster of Morsi on Wednesday.

According to report a military statement said the right to peaceful protest was protected, but violence and civil disobedience acts such as blocking roads would ''harm social peace.''

The clashes in the Nile Delta province of Sharqiya started hours following chief justice Adly Mansour, 67, swearing in as interim president until new elections, at a ceremony broadcast live from the Supreme Constitutional Court.

According to the Islamists, the military had conducted a brazen coup against Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected but controversial president, following massive protests calling for the Islamist's ouster.

Meanwhile Reuters said, security forces arrested the leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, yesterday in a crackdown against the Islamist movement.

The organisation's supreme guide, Badie was arrested in the northern city of Marsa Matrouh near the Libyan border, although according to  security sources they did not believe he had been trying to flee the country, Ahram Online reports citing Reuters.

An Islamist coalition led by the Muslim Brotherhood has called for a nation wide protest in a "Friday of Rejection" following weekly prayers, in what would be seen as an early test of Morsi's ongoing support and how the military would deal with it.

Aware of the increasing polarisation of society, the new interim leader, judge Adli Mansour, during his inauguration appealed to the Brotherhood, Morsi's power base, saying, "The Muslim Brotherhood are part of this people and are invited to participate in building the nation as nobody will be excluded, and if they respond to the invitation they will be welcomed," he said

In a rejection of the offer, a senior Brotherhood official,said it would not work with "the usurper authorities."