Indian counter-terrorism officials on Wednesday arrested five men on suspicion of plotting a series of attacks across the country on behalf of Islamic State, two intelligence officials said.

A Coptic Christian priest was killed earlier Thursday in North Sinai, Egypt's interior ministry announced. Reverand Rofael Moussa, the priest of St George Church in Al-Arish, was killed early morning, shot down by a group of unknown assailants, the ministry said in a statement issued Thursday afternoon.

At least 27 policemen were killed Thursday and 40 wounded after a bomb attack claimed by the Taliban struck a convoy of buses transporting police cadets in Kabul, the interior ministry said. The attack comes little over a week after 14 Nepali security guards who were heading to work at the Canadian embassy were killed in a massive blast that left their yellow minibus spattered with blood.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi urged Arab and Muslim countries to unite in the face of terrorism and called for purging religious discourse of extremism.

Twenty-three Turkish citizens and 13 foreign nationals were killed by suicide bombers in an attack at Istanbul's main international airport on Tuesday night, a Turkish presidential official said.

The Cairo Criminal Court on Wednesday adjourned the trial of 494 protesters, who were arrested as violence broke out around Al-Fatah Mosque after the dispersal of the Rabaa sit-in. The case was adjourned till October.

The Islamic State group (IS) pushed back an offensive by US-trained Syrian rebels on a key route linking militants territory in eastern Syria to Iraq, a monitor said Wednesday.

A Minya court judge ordered on Tuesday the release on bail of eight defendants, who were arrested in connection to attacks on Christians in Minya’s Karam village in May.

Eleven Kurdish rebels and three of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards were killed in clashes near the Iraqi border, the Fars news agency reported on Tuesday.

A group of clerics in Pakistan has declared marriage between transgender individuals permissible in Islam, saying they have a right to be buried in Muslim ceremonies, according to a copy of a religious edict Reuters obtained on Monday.

A suicide bomber detonated explosives at a Sunni mosque near Baghdad where worshippers were gathered for prayers, killing at least nine people, officials said on Tuesday.

Three coordinated Islamic State bomb attacks on Yemeni government forces killed 38 people in the southern port city of Mukalla on Monday, medics and security sources said.

An Egyptian court ordered on Tuesday the release on bail of eight people detained over sectarian violence by a Muslim mob against Christians in Upper Egypt last month, a defence lawyer said.

At least 14 people were killed in a series of bombings Monday that targeted troops in Yemen's southeastern city of Mukalla, which Al-Qaeda was driven out of in April, a security official said.

Weapons shipped into Jordan for Syrian rebels by the Central Intelligence Agency and Saudi Arabia were stolen by Jordanian intelligence operatives and sold to arms merchants on the black market, the New York Times reported, citing American and Jordanian officials.

Two conscripts were killed and two others were injured after a roadside bomb detonated in a passing armored personnel carrier passed. The victims were transferred to Arish Hospital, according to a medical source in North Sinai.

Cairo Court considers trial of 213 accused of belonging to Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis A Cairo Criminal Court will consider Saturday a trial of 213 people, allegedly accused of belonging to militant group of Sinai-based Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis that committed a total of 54 crimes against police personnel, and tried to assassinated former Minister of Interior Mohamed Ibrahim, Youm7 reported.

Bahrain on Monday jailed five Shia on charges linked to "terrorism" and revoked their citizenships, the prosecution said. Three defendants were found guilty of joining the clandestine "Al-Mukhtar Brigades" Shia group, possession of weapons for use in "terror" attacks and assaulting police, a prosecution statement said.

The Islamic State (IS) group Sunday published a video showing the execution-style killing of five Syrian citizen journalists they kidnapped eight months ago in the east of the war-torn country.