The United States plans to fight Islamic State until it is no longer a force in the Middle East and will seek justice for the killing of American journalist Steven Sotloff, President Barack Obama said on Wednesday.

Pope Tawadros II, patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt visited the World Council of Churches (WCC) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland on Monday 1 September. In the presence of representatives from ecumenical and international organizations, Tawadros participated in morning worship on 1 September followed by a meeting with staff and a conversation with the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit.

The Islamic State terrorist group has promised "surprises inside Egypt" as authorities said they are ready to confront the threat posed by the al-Qaeda-inspired group that has made advances in several areas of Iraq and Syria.

The Dar al-Ifta warned that the Western media fuel conflict and portray the crimes of terrorist groups, who falsely claim that they speak in the name of Islam, as if it is a war between the Orient and the Occident.

"Extremists" were behind an attack on a security convoy in North Sinai which left 11 killed on Tuesday, said Sinai Deputy Security Director Ali Azazi.

An attack on a convoy killed 11 members of the Egyptian security forces in the Sinai Peninsula on Tuesday, security and medical sources said.

Minister of Endowments Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa warned Monday of grave consequences if there is no “firm stand against recently released Muslim Brotherhood leaders”.

Former Egyptian MP Mohamed al-Omda said on Sunday that he will begin approaching the military-backed authorities and the Muslim Brotherhood group with a reconciliation bid he prepared following his recent release from detainment.

Egyptian security forces on August 29, 2014 arrested, at a demonstration, an academic who had provided information about the massacre of protesters in Rab’a Square in August, 2013. Police also raided the man’s home and beat him, his lawyer and a relative told Human Rights Watch.

The Egyptian Dar al-Ifta’s latest fatwa prohibited online chatting between men and women “foreign to each other,” Ahram Online reported.

Concern has spread among residents of the border areas in the northern Sinai Peninsula following the Egyptian army's planned establishment of a buffer zone on the Egyptian side of Rafah along the border with the Gaza Strip.

Concern has spread among residents of the border areas in the northern Sinai Peninsula following the Egyptian army's planned establishment of a buffer zone on the Egyptian side of Rafah along the border with the Gaza Strip.

The Cairo Criminal Court adjourned on Saturday a case against several leading Muslim Brotherhood figures, including Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie and his deputy Khairat El-Shater, to 8 September.

The Libyan Grand Mufti is reportedly being investigated in the UK on suspicion of inciting violence and Islamic insurgency in his home country.

The United States has launched a social media offensive against the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, setting out to win the war of ideas by ridiculing the militants with a mixture of blunt language and sarcasm. Diplomats and experts are the first to admit that the digital blitz being waged on Twitter, Facebook and Youtube will never be a panacea to combat the jihadists.

Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta, a semi-governmental religious body responsible for issuing fatwas, said Saturday that chatting between male and female strangers on the internet is prohibited unless it is extremely necessary.

Residents of Mahdia village, south of Rafah, uncovered two beheaded bodies, buried without their families being informed, bringing the number of bodies found during the past few days to seven.

An Egyptian jihadist group on Thursday (Aug 28) released a video in which it claimed responsibility for beheading four men accused of being "Israeli informants" before showing the victims' decapitated bodies.

Minya's criminal court on Thursday sentenced two alleged supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi to life in jail and seven others to 28 years on charges of attacking a police station during last summer's violent upheaval, Egypt's state-run TV reported.

Ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi has refused to answer questions on allegations he leaked top secret documents to Qatar, Al-Ahram Arabic newspaper reported.

The Islamist Al-Wasat Party, one of the most prominent members of the Muslim Brotherhood-led National Alliance in Support of Legitimacy, withdrew from the coalition on Thursday, citing the need to be part of a wider alliance.