Cairo - Egyptian police detained Monday 39 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood in northern Egypt, the group said on its website.

Three of the detainees are senior members of the movement in the northern city of Kafr al-Sheikh, according to the brotherhood website.

The members were rounded up, the group said, while on vacation in the nearby Mediterranean resort of Baltim.

The Brotherhood, the country's strongest opposition group, has been outlawed since 1954.

In an unprecedented showing, the group won a fifth of the 454 seats in the 2005 legislative election, making it the largest opposition bloc in parliament. Its candidates ran as independents.

Despite its sweeping majority of two-thirds of the seats in parliament, the government has targeted members of the movement in a systematic campaign to prevent them from making any further political gains.

The Muslim Brotherhood, mixing a political platform with the appeal of religion, seeks to establish a Muslim fundamentalist state in Egypt by political means. (dpa)