Muslim Brotherhood protestor holds picture of
Muslim Brotherhood protestor holds picture ofReuters

A senior Egyptian Justice Ministry official said on Tuesday that the assets of more than 500 leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, from which the country's ousted president hails, have been ordered confiscated.

According to The Associated Press (AP), Abdel-Azzem el-Ashri said that a ministerial inventory committee ordered the “movable and immovable properties” of 572 Muslim Brotherhood leaders seized.

The order is part of a wider crackdown on the Brotherhood, which the temporary government in Cairo last week blacklisted as a "terrorist organization".

Before the terror designation, the Muslim Brotherhood had already been the subject of a court ban by an Egyptian court, following the military-led ouster of President Mohammed Morsi in July. 

The ban on the group accompanied a campaign by security forces to crush the Islamist movement in which hundreds of its members have been killed and thousands arrested.

The terror designation came a day after a massive suicide car bombing in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura killed 16 people and wounded more than 100.

The Mansoura attack was claimed by Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, a Sinai-based Al Qaeda-inspired group which has claimed various attacks in and outside the Sinai peninsula, but Egypt’s government has said that there is a link between the Muslim Brotherhood and the ongoing terrorism in the country.

The Brotherhood has denied any connection to terrorism in Egypt.