Cairo: Two months after the military ousted Egypt's first elected president and began a bloody crackdown on his supporters, a delegation of US Republicans visited Cairo over the weekend to tell the new government to keep up the good work.

"We are here as members of Congress to say, 'We are with you, and we encourage you,' " Michele Bachmann said in a news conference broadcast over a pro-government satellite network.

Egypt's interim government has described its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood as a battle against terrorism, and Mrs Bachmann supported that reading, wrongly implying a link between the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the Brotherhood.

"We stand against this great evil," she said, adding: "We remember who caused 9/11. We remember who it was that killed 3000 brave Americans.