CAIRO, April 20: More than 50 members of an Islamist movement suspected of having ties with Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, including four Britons were recently arrested in Egypt, police said.

The source said 54 “extremists”, including four British citizens, from the Hizb Al-Tahrir (Islamic Liberation Party) were arrested over the past two weeks in Cairo, Giza and Alexandria, correcting a report by the daily Al-Ahram which put the number of arrests at 100.

The police said several of the detainees had citizenship from Egypt and a second country. They confirmed that four detainees were British and had links to Al Qaeda, a group blamed for the Sept 11 attacks on the United States.

The men were all being held for a 15-day period, which is renewable, charged with “belonging to a clandestine and illegal organization with the goal of suspending the law and the constitution and preventing state institutions from accomplishing their goals,” the police said.

The Hizb Al-Tahrir, a group which flourished in the Middle East in the 1970s, is committed to the creation of one Islamic state for Muslims around the world and advocates armed struggle.

The group attempted a coup against Egypt in the 1970s and was squashed.—AFP