Iran s Revolutionary Guard calimed it shot down a U.S. drone on Thursday over Iranian, while two U.S. officials told The Associated Press that the downing happened over international airspace in the Strait of Hormuz. The different accounts could not be immediately reconciled. “The downing of the American drone was a clear message to America ... our borders are Iran s red line and we will react strongly against any aggression ... Iran is not seeking war with any country, but we are fully prepared to defend Iran,” said the Guards commander-in-chief, Hossein Salami, TV reported.

More than 300,000 people have fled inter-ethnic violence in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo since early June, complicating the tracing and treatment of patients at risk from Ebola, U.N. aid agencies said on Tuesday. At least 161 people have been killed in a northeastern province of Democratic Republic of Congo in the past week, local officials said on Monday, in an apparent resurgence of ethnic clashes between farming and herding communities.

Egypt s ex-president Mohamed Morsi, who was ousted in 2013 following a popular uprising, died on Monday in Cairo after suffering a heart attack during a trial session in an espionage case, according to Egyptian state TV. Morsi, who was 67, was pronounced dead shortly after fainting during the session, which he attended as a defendant.

Thirty people were killed late Sunday in a triple suicide bombing in northeast Nigeria, emergency services reported, in an attack bearing the hallmarks of the Boko Haram jihadist group. hree bombers detonated their explosives outside a hall in Konduga, 38 kilometres (24 miles) from the Borno state capital Maiduguri, where football fans were watching a match on TV.

Head of the Islamic, Coptic, and Jewish Antiquities Sector Gamal Mostafa stated on Thursday that the ministry has finished the first stage in the development works of the monastery of Saint Catherine in South Sinai in cooperation with the ministries of local development, culture, environment, housing and the Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC). Mostafa added that he inspected the project works in the monastery of Saint Catherine under the supervision of the Supreme Committee for coordinating, raising efficiency for and developing the monastery.

The foreign ministers of Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria agreed to work together to reach settlement between warring factions in Libya and push for an “unconditional ceasefire” in the North African country. The ministers expressed “deep concern” over the chaotic situation in Libya as they met in Tunisia to discuss efforts to halt fighting and return to the UN-led political process, according to a joint statement published by Egypt s foreign ministry.

Egypt s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi discussed Egyptian-US relations in a meeting on Tuesday in Cairo with Ronald Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, the Egyptian presidency said. The Egyptian president discussed the latest developments in the peace process in the Middle East in addition to a number of issues in the region including the war on terrorism.

US Senator Ted Cruz will join experts and other lawmakers for a congressional panel next week that will push for designating the Muslim Brotherhood group as a terrorist organisation. The 20 June panel aims to discuss bills introduced by Cruz and house representative Mario Diaz-Balart to make the designation, said a Tuesday statement by event organiser American Pulse, an Egyptian media company that produces a weekly TV programme from New York.

Twelve orphans born to French jihadist families were flown home Monday from camps in Syria, along with two Dutch orphans who will be handed over to the Netherlands, the French foreign ministry said. The children - the second such group to be flown to France from Syria since March - were all "isolated and particularly vulnerable", the ministry said, adding some were sick or malnourished.

Pope Francis on Sunday appealed for peace in Sudan following a bloody crackdown by security forces on pro-democracy protesters in Khartoum last week. “The news coming from Sudan is giving rise to pain and concern. We pray for these people, so that the violence ceases and the common good is sought in the dialogue,” the pope said in his weekly address to crowds in St Peter s Square.

The Islamic State terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the attack that killed eight Egyptian policemen in the restive Sinai Peninsula on Wednesday, as the country marked the Islamic holiday of Eid Al-Fitr. "Islamic State fighters this morning launched two simultaneous attacks on two police checkpoints in the city of El-Arish," said a statement released by the terrorist group s propaganda wing, Amaq.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi performed Eid Al-Fitr prayers at the Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi Mosque on Wednesday. The president then headed to Al-Manara International Conferences Centre in Cairo s Fifth Settlement suburb to celebrate Eid Al-Fitr with the children of army and police personnel who were killed on duty.

The Muslim Eid Al-Fitr holiday will begin in Egypt on Wednesday 5 June, the Egyptian Dar El-Iftaa announced on Monday after sunset. "The Shawwal crescent moon was not visible across the country. Tuesday will be the last day of Ramadan," said Egypt s Grand Mufti Shawki Allam to the nation on Monday after the sunset.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has stressed the importance of having balanced religious discourse in confronting extremism and radical ideology. El-Sisi has repeatedly blamed outdated religious discourse for holding Egypt back, often calling on Islamic clerics to reform their religious speech to confront extremist ideology.

Pope Tawadros II has expressed his greetings to Al-Azhar s Grand Imam Ahmed El-Tayyeb and all Muslims on the advent of Eid Al-Fitr in a visit by the head of Egypt s Coptic Orthodox Church and a church delegation to Al-Azhar on Saturday. Eid Al-Fitr will take place from Tuesday to Thursday.

Commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA) Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar has charged that the UN Special Envoy for Libya Ghassan Salamé, is biased and working to partition the country. In an interview with Le Journal du Dimanche, published Sunday, Haftar said: “The partition of Libya is perhaps what our adversaries want. That may also be what Ghassan Salame wants. But as long as I m alive, it will never happen.”

Egypt has successfully secured the transfer of Hesham El-Ashmawy, one of the most wanted terrorists in Egypt, from his place of detention in Libya to Egypt on Tuesday night, according to a statement issued by the Media Office of the Egyptian Armed Forces Egyptian TV stations showed live footage on Tuesday night of Egyptian special forces walking a blind-folded and heavily-guarded El-Ashmawy off an Egyptian Armed Forces military plane onto Cairo Airport.

Egypt s Military spokesman colonel Tamer El-Refaie has dismissed as groundless a report issued by an international organization working in the human rights field on violations during terror combat operations in North Sinai. In statements to MENA Tuesday, he said some politicized organizations seek to tarnish the image of Egypt and its army through fabricating such reports.

An Iraqi court on Monday condemned a fourth French citizen to death for joining the Islamic State group, a day after handing capital punishments to three other Frenchmen. Mustapha Merzoughi, 37, was sentenced to death by hanging, according to an AFP journalist at the court. "The evidence and the confession show that you joined the Islamic State group, that you worked in its military branch," the judge told Merzoughi before handing down his sentence.

Khalifa Haftar, commander of Libyan National Army (LNA), who is leading a military offensive against the UN-recognised government in Tripoli, said in an interview published Sunday he will continue fighting until militias in the city laid down their arms. Haftar had said he was fighting against “private militias and ex

Islamic State s West Africa branch claimed responsibility on Wednesday for a raid in Nigeria two days earlier in which it said 20 soldiers had been killed, and released a video purporting to show the execution of nine other Nigerian soldiers. A security source and a humanitarian worker, both requesting anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to media, said insurgents struck the northeastern town of Gubio in Borno state on Monday evening, in vehicles mounted with heavy machine guns and on motorbikes.