Kurdish militia backed by US-led air strikes fought fierce street battles Tuesday with advancing jihadists whose three-week assault on a key Syrian border town has left hundreds reported dead.

A Franciscan priest and several Christians have been seized by Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front in a village in northwestern Syria, the Franciscan mission to the Holy Land said on Tuesday.

Sound bomb detonated near the Evangelical Church in Upper Egypt's Minya city late Sunday, state news agency MENA reported.

Egyptian jihadists have reportedly beheaded another three Egyptians they accused of working for Israeli intelligence, a gruesome video posted on YouTube and then removed has shown.

Egyptian security forces on Monday detained a man for flashing the four-fingered Rabaa al-Adawiya sign at the Tahrir Square as scores of people were marking the 41st anniversary of a 1973 military victory over Israel.

Small-scale protests by supporters of president Mohamed Morsi took place in Egypt on Monday, the anniversary of the 6 October war, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported.

Air strikes on three bases of the Islamic State group around their northern Iraqi hub of Mosul killed at least 25 jihadists overnight, medical sources and witnesses said on Monday.

Clashes erupted in Alexandria on Sunday between supporters and opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Egypt condemned Saturday the execution of British relief worker Alan Henning by the militants of the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed support for President Barack Obama’s goal of defeating ISIS but said curbing Iran’s nuclear program is also top priority during a recent interview.

Unidentified gunmen abducted Friday evening a Sufi religious leader and others South Sheikh Zuweid city in North Sinai, army source said, adding that they were kidnapped from a prayer area following Maghrib prayers.

Egypt's now-banned Muslin Brotherhood group on Saturday set up several spaces for Eid prayers outside mosques in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, despite a sustained government crackdown on the Islamist group.

Fifteen Egyptian pilgrims have died in Mecca as the annual Hajj pilgrimage begins in the holy Muslim city, according to an Egyptian health ministry official.

Egypt's army killed a field commander in Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, the country's most dangerous Islamist militant group, during clashes on Thursday in the lawless north of the Sinai Peninsula, security sources said.

Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb received, on Thursday, Pope Tawadros and the delegation accompanying him who arrived to congratulate him on Eid Al-Adha.

Al-Azhar University student Sarah Khaled, who was detained nine months ago for wearing a Rabaa pin, was acquitted Wednesday, according to her lawyer Negad el-Borai Thursday.

A homemade bomb exploded on Thursday near the security directorate headquarters of the Gharbeya governorate, injuring two security men, state media reported.

Toppled President Mohamed Morsy did not attend his trial session, along with another 131 Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas defendants, over jailbreak charges, security sources told Al-Masry Al-Youm.

Egypt has offered to train pro-government forces battling rival armed groups in Libya, stepping up efforts to eradicate what it says is a threat to its own stability from the anarchy engulfing its neighbor.

An Egyptian national was killed in Libya's eastern city of Bengazi early Wednesday.

In the wake of delivering his speech at the UN General Assembly, the Egyptian coup leader Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi has said that the Muslim Brotherhood could join the government on condition of "rejecting violence".