About 40 people have been killed by suspected Boko Haram militants who torched houses and shot people as they fled in two villages in northeast Nigeria’s Borno state, witnesses told Reuters on Wednesday.

The United States and its coalition allies staged nine air strikes in Iraq and Syria in the latest round of daily attacks on Islamic State on Tuesday, aCommand Joint Task Force statement said.

A Qena military court sentenced 63 Muslim Brotherhood supporters in absentia to 15 years in prison on Wednesday, acquitting 26 other defendants of charges of attempting to storm Qena Security Directorate and Qena Diocese, during protests following the dispersal of Rabaa al-Adawiya and al-Nahda sit-ins in 2013.

Lawyers representing Mohamed al-Zawahiri, the brother of al-Qaeda’s top leader, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, told the Cairo Criminal Court on Wednesday that the material evidence presented in their client's trial over terrorism charges had been tampered with and fabricated.

Egypt’s Minister of Religious Endowments Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa on Monday issued orders to remove any books, cassettes or CDs that incite violence and radicalism from mosque libraries around the country, the Ahram Arabic news website has reported.

Egypt-based major Islamic Sunni institution Al-Azhar has strongly denounced on Sunday endeavours by the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders to publish a cartoon that allegedly offends Islam.

Security forces killed 22 suspected militants in North Sinai on Monday, security sources said, adding that those killed planned to target security forces.

The Ministry of Endowments denied on its website on Monday the news reports about the instructions it had sent to its offices nationwide, allegedly ordering them to “burn” the books written by Muslim Brotherhood figures.

Despite Egyptian efforts to extradite Al-Jazeera journalist Ahmed Mansour from Germany to Egypt, he was released Monday from a German prison after two days of detention, Reuters reported the Berlin state prosecutor as saying.

Prominent Al Jazeera journalist and Muslim Brotherhood supporter Ahmed Mansour is to be released by the German authorities, two days he was stopped at Berlin's Tegerl airport and detained for reasons yet clear, the Qatari-owned TV channel, quoting German sources.

Egypt’s Ministry of Education has taken over 104 schools allegedly affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, Youm7 reported Monday.

Endowments Minister Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa has asked employees to take stock of the libraries annexed to mosques across the republic and remove books unlicensed by the ministry, sources within the ministry have told Al-Masry Al-Youm.

Libya's self-declared government in Tripoli carried out air strikes on Islamic State militant positions in the city of Sirte, hitting a building where fighters had gathered, officials and witnesses said.

Bombings of two houses in North Sinai's al-Arish city left 8 injured, including civilians, on Monday as a dozen suspected militants were killed in security forces' operations, source said.

Former President Mohamed Morsi appeared in an execution red uniform on Sunday during a court trial on charges of espionage.

According to judicial sources, Mohamed Wahdan, Mahmoud Ghezlan, Mohamed Saad Elaiwa, Mahmoud Ezzat and 16 other fugitive Muslim Brotherhood leaders have been referred to military trial over charges of espionage for terrorist organizations and planning to kill police and military leaders, as well as media personnel.

Cairo Criminal Court resumes on Sunday the trial of former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and ten others for allegedly leaking classified documents to Qatar.

Pope Francis said on Sunday the mistreatment of migrants escaping war and injustice "makes one cry" as he visited the northern Italian city of Turin, stopping to pray before an icon some Christians believe is Jesus' burial cloth.

Islamic State group has planted mines and bombs in the ancient part of the central Syrian city of Palmyra, home to Roman-era ruins, a group monitoring the war said on Sunday.

Egypt's foreign affairs ministry on Wednesday said it rejected some countries "offending the Egyptian judiciary", following mass death sentences on Tuesday against over 100 defendants including ousted Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi.

Boko Haram militants attacked two villages in southern Niger’s Diffa region overnight, killing at least 30 civilians, two security sources said on Thursday.