Iranian senior lawmaker: Morsi deceived by US, neighbours

Chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi warned of the US interfering policies in the regional states, and said former Egyptian President Mohammad Mursi and his Ikhwan al-Muslimun party were beguiled by Washington and the neighboring states. "Ikhwan al-Muslimun imagined that the US and Egypt's regional friends can protect their country, but it didn’t happen and they were deceived," Boroujerdi said, addressing a conference in Tehran on Sunday. He warned that the policy of the US and Israel is focused on continued massacres in Egypt and other regional states in a move to safeguard the Zionist regime. The bloodshed has thrown Egypt into deeper turmoil weeks after the country's president was overthrown by the army in the wake of mass protests against his rule. The unrest, resulting from mounting polarization between factions opposing and supporting Mursi, has claimed the lives of dozens and wounded hundreds since Mursi's expulsion from the presidency. The death toll from Friday and Saturday's clashes in Egypt rose to 80, according to a Health Ministry official Khaled El-Khatib. Seventy-two of the casualties took place during violence between police and pro-Mursi supporters on the fringes of a month-long sit-in held by the president's loyalists in Northern Cairo. Ten people were killed in Egypt's Mediterranean city of Alexandria during deadly clashes between loyalists and foes of Egypt's ousted president Mursi. The official put the tally of injured at 792 nationwide, including 411 in clashes near the pro-Mursi sit-in in Cairo's Nasr City neighborhood. A spokesman from Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood, Ahmed Aref, said 66 people had been killed and another 61 were on life support machines. He told reporters that more than 4,000 were wounded by tear gas and bullet or birdshot wounds. The Brotherhood's official website, however, said at least 200 people had been killed and some 5,000 wounded.