Security forces in Assiut on Tuesday arrested 43 youths and students near the location of an explosion earlier this week at a currency exchange company, eye witnesses said. The group were arrested in the regions of al-Sadat and al-Walideyyah and were taken to a state security office to be questioned, the witnesses added. Central security trucks and state security officers had set up three checkpoints in downtown Assiut and on the city's outskirts, where the officers stopped passers-by and cars for inspection. Most of those stopped were university students and bearded youths, according to sources. A security source, however, has denied the arrests are in connection with the explosion. “These procedures mainly target bearded youth who belong to religious movements for whom state security has no records,” the source added. Extremist Islamic groups burgled and bombed several currency exchanges and jewelery shops in Upper Egypt during the 1990s in a spate of confrontations between the state and Islamic groups. An Egyptian court is also currently reviewing a case in which an Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist cell has been charged with murdering a Coptic jeweler and three of his assistants in the Cairo district of Zaitoun in May 2009.
