Syrian rebel groups announced a new battle against government forces on Monday, a sign of escalating violence that has undermined a ceasefire deal and threatens to derail UN-led peace talks.

With Italian lessons and strolls around Rome, the 12 Syrian asylum seekers Pope Francis brought back with him from Lesbos are settling into new lives, their hosts said Monday.

Boko Haram fighters on Monday attacked Nigerian soldiers in the northeast of the country, where the jihadists have been waging a seven-year insurgency, the army said.

Two people were killed and 11 injured in a bomb blast in Arish, North Sinai, on Monday. According to security sources, an explosive device was planted by terrorists on Khazan Street, in the city of Arish.

Egypt's Court of Cassation overturned on Sunday three-year jail sentences for 17 Al-Azhar students convicted of rioting in December 2013.

The United States and its allies have conducted 26 strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria since Saturday, the coalition leading the operations said in a statement on Sunday.

Founders of an anti-niqab (face veil) initiative will be investigated for “threatening national security and societal peace,” according to an attorney-general decision Sunday.

Jordanian security forces mistakenly raided the headquarters of the kingdom's largest Muslim Brotherhood group on Sunday after confusing it with the offices of an outlawed organization, the government said.

Pope Francis spoke emotionally Sunday of his meeting a day earlier with migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos, which culminated with him taking three Syrian families back to the Vatican.

A prominent media advocacy group on Wednesday called on Turkish authorities to protect journalists after a Syrian reporter was gunned down in broad daylight by Islamic State militants in southeastern Turkey — the fourth such attack in six months.

The body of a conscript and four others injured were taken to an Arish hospital after their vehicle passed over a roadside bomb, Youm7 reported Wednesday.

Islamic State group militants (IS) have seized a string of opposition-held villages in Syria's Aleppo province near the Turkish border, a monitoring group said Thursday.

A Belgium appeals court on Thursday sentenced top Islamist militants recruiter Khalid Zerkani to 15 years in prison after convicting him of enlisting key suspects in the Brussels and Paris attacks.

The case presented by the Iranian judiciary was simple: In the southern province of Fars, Fatemeh Salbehi suffocated her husband after drugging him, a capital crime in the Islamic Republic.

Philippine militants that want to ally with Islamic State group militants (IS) have beheaded two local hostages, police said Wednesday.

The number of Islamic State militants group (IS) in Syria and Iraq is lower than at any time in the past two years, Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday.

The United States and its allies conducted nine strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria on Tuesday, the coalition leading the operations said.

Mental illness, abandonment and impotence will soon be considered valid grounds for divorce in the Evangelist Church in Egypt; the church will hold an expanded meeting Wednesday to discuss a proposal to loosen rules to dissolve marriages, Youm7 reported.

Jordan has raided and shut down the headquarters of the original Muslim Brotherhood group in its capital. Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood split in March 2015 over whether to remain a branch of the mother movement in Egypt. The group that cut ties is now licensed, while the “old” Brotherhood is outlawed, despite severing ties with the Cairo movement earlier this year.

An explosion in the southern Lebanon city of Sidon killed an official from the Palestinian Fatah movement on Tuesday, an official from the group said.

As US-led offensives drive back Islamic State in Iraq, concern is growing among US and UN officials that efforts to stabilize liberated areas are lagging, creating conditions that could help the militants endure as an underground network.