Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II attempted on Monday to reassure Egyptians after the recent attacks on Copts in North Sinai, stressing that the Coptic families that have fled the governorate out of fear of terrorist violence will return to the city "when the time is right." At the start of this month, the Coptic Orthodox Church announced that 143 Christian families had fled North Sinai to Ismailiya after a spate of killings of Christians by Islamist militants in the governorate.

Islamic State's branch in the Sinai Peninsula posted a video on Tuesday depicting the beheading of two men the militant Islamist group said it had found guilty of practicing witchcraft and sorcery. The video, posted on a Telegram channel often used by IS, showed the group forming a religious police unit known as the Hasbah in northern Sinai, where it has waged an insurgency for years. The rugged, thinly populated peninsula borders Israel, Gaza and the Suez Canal.

Islamic State-affiliate Province of Sinai released a promotional video on Tuesday showing members of the organization carrying out what it alleges to be Hisba, or religious policing. The group claimed the footage is from locations in North Sinai, which it did not identify. Hisba is defined by religious scholars as the practice of commanding virtue and forbidding vice, professor of Islamic law professor at Al-Azhar University Ahmed Kareema told the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper. He added that Hisba should be conducted by a select few who must be efficient, fair, knowledgeable and capable, describing it as a type of guardianship falling to those who have been entrusted with religious matters.

The head of Egypt s Coptic Orthodox Church Pope Tawadros II is recovering after successfully undergoing spinal microsurgery in Germany this week, church spokesman Bolis Halim said on Tuesday. "The pope is set to spend two weeks in recovery before returning to the homeland," the spokesman said. Pope Tawadros II left Cairo for Germany on 11 October to undergo surgery at a private hospital.

A convoy carrying food and medical aid entered Syria s rebel-held Eastern Ghouta on Tuesday, the United Nations said, in a rare humanitarian delivery that comes after days of heavy bombardment. A monitor said government air strikes continued Tuesday, hitting the town of Hammuriyeh shortly before the aid convoy entered the region, which has been under siege since 2013.

Pope Francis arrived in mainly Buddhist Myanmar Monday on a highly sensitive visit to a country facing sharp global criticism for the alleged ethnic cleansing of its Rohingya Muslim minority. Catholics in colourful ethnic traditional dress waved flags and danced at Yangon s airport in a joyful welcome for the pope, making the first visit to the country by a pontiff.

Since the deadly attack on a mosque in Egypt’s North Sinai that killed 305 worshipping Muslims, questions have been raised as to why the perpetrators would carry out such an act on civilians performing their weekly Friday prayers. Considering that the number of inhabitants in the Bir al-Abd village where the al-Rowda mosque is located is only around 2000, the attack wiped out a considerable part of the community.

The Pope has led a minute of silence in St. Peter s Square for the victims of the deadly attack on a mosque in Egypt. Francis said following the traditional Angelus greeting on Sunday that the victims "were praying in that moment. We also pray in silence for them."

Nigeria’s military has repelled an attempt by suspected Boko Haram militants to seize the northeastern town of Magumeri, a spokesman said on Sunday, a day after the attack. The assault was the latest in a series of attacks in northeast Nigeria, where the conflict with the Islamist insurgency has dragged into a ninth year with little sign of an end.

Russia s planned peace talks among Syrian groups will only succeed if the opposition ends its fight against the government, a senior adviser to President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday. "The success of the congress depends on the various opposition groups realising that the time has come to stop the violence, lay down their weapons and engage in a national dialogue," said Bouthaina Shaaban in comments to a Russian news agency carried by Syrian state media.

Syria s main opposition stuck by its demand on Thursday that President Bashar al-Assad play no role in an interim period under any U.N.-sponsored peace deal, despite speculation it could soften its stance because of Assad s battlefield strength. "The participants stressed that this (the transition) cannot happen without the departure of Bashar al Assad and his clique at the start of the interim period," opposition groups said in a communique at the end of a meeting in Saudi Arabia.

The Egyptian Second Field Army – who are assigned with the task of securing North Sinai and Ismailia from an extremist insurgency – killed four militants on Tuesday during operations against the Islamic State group. A statement released by the military’s official spokesperson said the operation resulted in the destruction of a large amount of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) which were in possession of the militants.

Leading Palestinian factions are meeting in Cairo on Tuesday to follow up on the implementation of a Palestinian reconciliation agreement brokered by Egypt on 12 October, mainly between Palestine s two major groups Fatah and Hamas. Senior Fatah official Azzam Al-Ahmed said in Cairo that the current round of meetings aims to discuss the mechanisms of implementing the deal and pushing forward the Palestinian reconciliation process, despite the “slow pace” in its implementation.

Egypt s military spokesman Tamer El-Refaie said in two official statements on Tuesday that the army has killed five terrorists during security operations in Sinai. El-Refaie said that the second field army killed four terrorists in North Sinai and destroyed a number of hideouts used to store improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

German police on Tuesday detained six Syrians suspected of planning an attack using weapons or explosives on behalf of the Islamic State militant group, prosecutors said. Police detained the suspects aged between 20 and 28 during raids in the cities of Kassel, Hanover, Essen and Leipzig, the general prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt said in a statement. Some 500 police officers took part in the raids during which eight apartments were searched.

A delegation of Coptic bishops traveled to London to participate in the enthronement ceremony of Abba Angelos, Bishop of London. The celebration was attended by the Egyptian ambassador to London, a number of British officials, Bishop Bakhomius, former acting Patriarch and Bishop Raphael, Secretary of the Holy Synod.

Egypt ranked 139th on the world peace index for 2017, jumping by 3 levels compared to 2016, according to a report by the Institute for Economics and Peace, issued on Sunday, which listed a total of 163 countries. The index measures the degree of peacefulness in accordance with three criteria: the level of security and safety in society, the level of domestic and global conflict, and the degree of military strength.

The Syrian army and its allies took complete control over Albu Kamal, Islamic State’s last significant town in Syria, a military news service run by Hezbollah said on Sunday. The army had declared victory over Islamic State in Albu Kamal earlier this month but the jihadists then staged a counter-attack using sleeper cells hidden in the town.

Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi met on Sunday a delegation of leading figures from Evangelical churches around the world as part of the Egyptian Evangelical Churchs celebration of the start of the Evangelical Reformation 500 years ago. According to the Egyptian presidency, Sisi congratulated the Evangelical church representatives on the anniversary during the meeting in Cairo, expressing the countrys appreciation for Evangelical Egyptians.

Egyptian army spokesman Tamer El-Refaie said in a statement on Thursday that law enforcement forces of the Second Field Army have targeted terrorist hideouts in North Sinai during the recent days, killing 3 high-risk terrorists and arresting 74 others suspected of supporting terrorist elements. The statement said that the raids came as part of wider Armed Forces efforts to pursue terrorists and criminal elements.

The Islamic State (IS) militant group has lost 95 percent of the cross-border "caliphate" it declared three years ago in Iraq and Syria, the US-led coalition fighting it has said. "Since our coalition was formed in 2014, ISIS has lost 95 percent of the territory it once controlled in Iraq and Syria," Washington s envoy to the coalition, Brett McGurk, said late Wednesday after a meeting in Jordan, using an alternative acronym for IS.