A group of Islamist scholars led by an influential Qatar-based cleric expressed "astonishment" on Monday at being designated a terrorist body by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), one of several Gulf Arab states that view political Islam as a security threat.

Egypt's foreign ministry has condemned the killing of American aid worker Peter Kassig by Islamic State (IS). "Egypt condemns harshly and with the strongest words and complete disapproval this brutal and criminal murder. It is a barbaric incident that contradicts the lessons of the Islamic religion, and is far from the simplest humanitarian and ethical rules," the statement released on Monday said.

Another accused has been added to the case against ousted president Mohamed Morsi and 35 other leading Muslim Brotherhood figures Saturday.

The Islamic State jihadist group on Sunday claimed to have executed Peter Kassig, a US aid worker kidnapped in Syria, as a warning to the United States.

Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria ordained 10 new priests on Saturday at the headquarters of the Patriarchate in Alexandria.

Egypt's armed forces killed three "terrorists" during security raids conducted in cooperation with the ministry of interior in North Sinai on Saturday, its spokesman said on Sunday.

“The message of the Egyptian army” is the title of a video released by the Armed Forces on the official website of the Ministry of Defense Saturday, following Sinai-based militant group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis’ videos claiming responsibility for attacks in Sinai.

In the past two days 10 alleged ‘takfiris’ (extremist jihadis) have been killed and 54 have been arrested, announced military spokesperson Mohamed Samir Saturday on his Facebook page.

President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has ruled out an Islamist win during the anticipated parliament elections which he promised to run before the end of March 2015.

Militants in Egypt's restive Sinai Peninsula shot dead two policemen and three soldiers after intercepting their vehicles on Thursday, security officials said.

Khaled el-Rashidi, a young man in his early twenties, was shot in the head and died on Wednesday night in clashes between security forces and residents of the Nahia neighborhood in Kerdasah near Cairo, April 6 Youth Movement member Sherif el-Roubi told The Cairo Post Thursday.

Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church could finally change internal familial by-laws, which currently forbid Egyptian Coptic Christians from divorcing or remarrying, after increasing pressure from members within the community. Some members also adovate changing by-laws regulating papal elections, which were put in place in the 2012 election of incumbent Pope Tawadros II.

The Board of Directors of Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) approved Thursday donating LE2.5 billion ($360 million) in recouped tax payments to the Tahya Misr ("Long Live Egypt") social fund established by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi.

Al-Azhar University expelled on Tuesday 23 students whom it accused of being involved in on-campus protests and riots.

Egypt's Salafist Nour Party said on Tuesday that it will take all necessary legal actions against "defamers" who claimed one of the group's members was at the centre of a scandal involving home sex tapes.

Egypt's plan to create a security buffer zone along its border with Gaza is not a solution to growing militancy in the Sinai region as it does not address the roots of the problem, the head of Amnesty International said on Wednesday.

Hundreds of residents in the Gaza city of Rafah, near the Palestinian-Egyptian border, have been complaining of the continuous sounds of penetrating explosions on the Egyptian side, Pls48.net news website reported on Tuesday.

The Egyptian militant group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis pledged allegiance to ISIS' leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Monday, joining a growing number of jihadist groups outside of Syria and Iraq who’ve offered their support to the self-declared caliphate.

They have slaughtered hundreds of Egyptian soldiers and police officers, recruited experienced fighters and staged increasingly sophisticated raids from the Western desert to the Sinai Peninsula. They have beheaded informants and killed an American in a carjacking, say Western officials familiar with intelligence reports.

The US has said it will "assess" the potential implications of an Egyptian jihadist group's pledge of allegiance to Islamic State (IS).

The interior ministry has vowed to block protests by a Salafist group calling for the implementation of Sharia law.