Egyptian authorities said on Tuesday that Muslim clerics will be required to read out identical pre-written weekly sermons as part of the government's campaign against extremism, drawing angry criticism from some preachers.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has issued a decree to extend the state of emergency in parts of North Sinai for another three months, as of July 29.

The Egyptian government said Tuesday that Muslim preachers in the country must now adhere to speeches issued by the Ministry of Religious Endowments during Friday sermons; a controversial move that authorities say is aimed at combating extremism.

At least 11 civilians, including three children, were killed in air strikes on a rebel-held town in Syria's northwestern Idlib province on Wednesday, a monitor said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said it was unclear if the strikes on the town of Ariha in Idlib province were carried out by Syrian government or Russian war planes.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said yesterday that Turkey did not take any steps to normalize its relations with Egypt, but it would like to launch such steps after it had recently improved its relations with Russia and Israel.

Revelations of a secret meeting between a leading Egyptian Salafist and former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni have set Egyptian media ablaze.

Egyptian authorities said on Tuesday Muslim clerics would be required to read out identical pre-written weekly sermons as part of the government's campaign against extremism, drawing angry criticism from some preachers.

A series of attacks against Christians in Egypt has prompted the Coptic Orthodox Archbishop of Minya to call on police to enforce the law protecting citizens from sectarian violence.

A roadside bomb killed two Egyptian policemen on Tuesday in North Sinai, according to the interior ministry. Two other police personnel and a conscript were wounded in the bombing that hit a passing police patrol in the provincial capital of Al-Arish, the ministry added in a statement.

A local official in central Mali was killed on Monday in an attack that left his body "riddled" with bullets, security sources and an eyewitness told AFP.

Two policemen were killed and three injured in a bomb blast in Arish city, according to an Interior Ministry statement released on Monday.

In the first such visit for nearly a decade, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, offering Cairo’s help in reviving peace talks with Palestine. Mr. Shoukry’s visit is the first by a high-level Egyptian official to Israel since 2007.

Egyptian security forces foiled Sunday an attack that was set to target a security checkpoint in North Sinai's Sheikh Zuweid city, the Egyptian military said.

The chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare tells Breitbart News that America’s longtime ally Egypt is turning to Russia for military assistance because the Obama administration has “abandoned” the North African country.

A car bomb has killed 12 Libyan troops allied to General Khalifa Haftar, commander of forces with the country's eastern government, who have been fighting a campaign against Islamist militants there, a military source said.

Two Bangladeshi policeman were killed and nine other officers were wounded on Thursday in a grenade attack on a security checkpoint in a town hosting Bangladesh's biggest celebrations for the end of the Ramadan fasting month, officials said.