A Nile Delta prosecutor says he has charged 40 people with belonging to the Islamic State militant group and planning to carry out terrorist attacks in Egypt.The announcement marks the first time people in Egypt's Nile Delta have been accused of belonging to the group, which holds a third of Iraq and Syria in its self-declared caliphate.
Bilal Abu Khadra, a prosecutor in Egypt's Sharqiya province, said that those charged had communicated with Islamic State militants in Syria.
He also said the cell's leader had confessed to receiving money from the extremists to recruit and help militants travel to Syria.
Mr Khadra said 20 of the defendants had been detained, while the others would be tried in absentia.
Islamic State gained a foothold in Egypt last November when a Sinai-based militant group declared itself an affiliate of the extremists.
Amid the burgeoning Islamic insurgency in Egypt, thousands have been arrested in the course of a sweeping crackdown on Islamists since the military's 2013 ousting of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
In the latest attack on security forces, militants remotely detonated a bomb in the Sinai Peninsula south of the city of el-Arish on Sunday, killing an army conscript and wounding two soldiers, security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Egypt has been active in launching air strikes against Islamic State, with Egyptian jets bombing targets in Libya a day after Islamic State released a video showing 21 Egyptian Christians being beheaded.
