CAIRO—Egypt’s military-backed government tightened its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, ordering the arrest Wednesday of its revered leader in a bid to choke off the group’s campaign to reinstate ousted president Mohammed Morsi one week after an army-led coup.

The Brotherhood denounced the issuing of warrants for the arrest of Mohammed Badie and nine other leading Islamists for allegedly inciting violence Monday that left dozens dead. It said “dictatorship is back” and vowed it will never work with the interim rulers.

The Brotherhood is outraged by the overthrow of Morsi, one of its own, and demands nothing less than his release from detention and his reinstatement as president.

Security agencies have already jailed five leaders of the Brotherhood, including Badie’s powerful deputy, Khairat el-Shaiter, and shut down its media outlets.

The prosecutor general’s office said Badie and others are suspected of instigating the clashes with security forces outside a Republican Guard building near Cairo’s Rabaah al-Adawiya Mosque that killed 54 people — most of them Morsi supporters — in the worst bloodshed since he was ousted.

The Islamists have accused the troops of gunning down protesters, while the military blamed armed backers of Morsi for attempting to storm a military building.

The warrants highlight the military’s zero-tolerance policy toward the Brotherhood, which was banned under Hosni Mubarak.

“This just signals that dictatorship is back,” said Brotherhood spokesman Ahmed Aref. “We are returning to what is worse than Mubarak’s regime, which wouldn’t dare to issue an arrest warrant of the general leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The Brotherhood’s refusal to work with the new interim leaders underscored the difficulties they face in trying to stabilize Egypt and bridge the fissures that have opened in the country during Morsi’s year in office.

Morsi has not been seen since the July 3 coup, but Foreign Ministry spokesman Badr Abdel-Atti gave the first official word on him in days, saying he is in a safe place and is being treated in a “very dignified manner.” No charges have been levelled against him, Abdel-Atti said.

News of the arrest warrants did not surprise the protesters, who saw the move as an attempt to pressure the group’s leadership to end the demonstration.

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