Egyptian media is reporting on the increasing confrontation between the Salafis and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. According to a report in Al-Masry Al Youm:
Confrontations between Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood have escalated following the division of Islamist groups between two major coalitions, namely the Democratic Alliance, of which the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party is a member, and a recently formed coalition of Salafi parties, which includes the Jama’a al-Islamiya’s Building and Development Party. The Salafis, who are ultraconservatist Islamists, left the Democratic Alliance recently to form a coalition of their own. The Brotherhood has dominated the Democratic Alliance for months. “There are six million Salafis in Egypt,” said Adel Afify, president of the Salafi Asala Party. “This makes them the largest single political force if all of them cast their votes.” But Ashraf Badr Eddin, a member of the Freedom and Justice Party’s executive committee, said Afify was exaggerating. “This is his way of campaigning for his party,” he said, contending that there are no statistics regarding the number of Salafis or Muslim Brothers in Egypt.