Egypt army, government to offer compromise to Muslim Brotherhood -...

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Egypt's army and government will offer to free some Muslim Brotherhood members from jail, unfreeze the group's assets and give it three ministerial posts in a bid to end the country's political crisis, a senior military source said on Monday.

"The initiative will be made so that we can end the crisis and have the Brotherhood end their sit-ins," the military source told Reuters. A political source familiar with the proposal confirmed the details.

Earlier on Monday, a top U.S. diplomat met with a jailed senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood as part of mediation efforts to end the standoff between Egypt's military-backed government and protesters supporting ousted President Mohammed Morsi, Egyptian officials said.

The talks between U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Khairat el-Shater, the powerful deputy head of the Brotherhood, took place in the prison where the Islamist figure is being held, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media. Burns was accompanied by the foreign ministers of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates as well as an EU envoy.

El-Shater was among a host of prominent Islamists arrested by authorities after the army ousted Morsi, a longtime Brotherhood member, on July 3. El-Shater has been charged with complicity in the killing of anti-Morsi protesters during the four days of protests that led up to the military coup.

The government officials did not say why Burns and the other diplomats visited el-Shater, who was widely believed along with the Brotherhood's spiritual leader Mohammed Badie to be the source of real power during Morsi's one year in power.

But Burns and the three other diplomats are in Egypt as part of international efforts to end a standoff between Morsi's supporters and the military-backed interim government.

Meanwhile, at least 2,000 Islamist supporters of Morsi marched through downtown Cairo calling for his reinstatement and denouncing the army general who led his overthrew.

Security forces made no immediate attempt to disperse the protesters, who marched 10 abreast, stretching several blocks.

Morsi became Egypt's first freely-elected president in June 2012, 16 months after the overthrow of strongman Hosni Mubarak, who had ruled for nearly 30 years.

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International envoys trying to end Egypt's political crisis are urging the Muslim Brotherhood to "swallow the reality" that Mohamed Morsi's time as president is over but the group is refusing, the Brotherhood's spokesman said on Monday.

Gehad El-Haddad also confirmed that the envoys had visited jailed deputy Brotherhood leader Khairat El-Shater in prison in the early hours of Monday, but he had cut the meeting short, saying they should be talking to Morsi.

In turn, the spokesman for Egypt's interim president says not a "single step" will be changed in the military-backed political road map announced when the army ousted the nation's Islamist leader a month ago.

Ahmed al-Muslemani's statement Monday appeared designed to debunk speculation that a series of recent visits by Western and Arab diplomats to Cairo are likely to persuade Egypt's interim government to offer any substantive concessions to supporters of Morsi in return for the end to their main sit-in protests.

The road map calls for amending or replacing an Islamist-backed constitution adopted in 2012. It also envisages parliamentary and presidential elections early in 2014.

Violence flares up in Egypt's Sinai:

Two Islamic shrines were damaged by bomb attacks in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Sunday, the state news agency said, in a region where Islamist militants have stepped up attacks against the state since the army deposed President Morsi.

One of the shrines targeted was near the North Sinai town of Bir el-Abd, and the other was in the area of el-Maghara farther south. Both were badly damaged.

Often dedicated to saints or descendants of the Prophet Mohammad, such shrines are forbidden according to the puritanical Islamic vision of the militants operating in the area.

AP/REUTERS