Egypt's prosecution referred at least 38 alleged Islamists, including an influential exiled cleric, to military trial Saturday, accusing them of setting up militant cells that killed a police officer.

Al Shabaab took control of a populous town in central Somalia on Sunday after African Union forces left the area – the third town the Islamist insurgents have seized since Friday, militants and local officials said.

Egypt’s acting prosecutor general ordered on Saturday the referral of 35 defendants accused of killing a high-ranking police officer in April to the military judiciary, the prosecution said.

Five alleged Muslim Brotherhood members were arrested for purportedly being involved in a deadly attack on a bus in Beheira, the Interior Ministry announced on Saturday.

A high-flying student in Egypt was shocked to discover that she had spectacularly failed all seven of her exams without even scoring a single mark.

Egypt's ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi told EU diplomats in 2012 that protests at the American embassy in Cairo in September of that year were orchestrated by Salafists who did not approve of his policies and wanted to destabilise his government, Hillary Clinton's emails revealed.

A Christian high school student who challenged the Education Ministry's exam protocol resulting in a public outcry, has declined to meet with Pope Tawadros II, the church said Wednesday.

The Sohag Criminal Court ruled Thursday to sentence 119 Muslim Brotherhood defendants accused of torching a church in Upper Egypt in 2013 to sentences ranging from 10 years and life in prison, Youm7 reported.

A criminal court issued prison verdicts against 119 defendants on charges of the arson of St Mary’s Church in Sohag governorate, state media reported.

Muslim Brotherhood lawmaker Mohammad al-Falahgi was arrested on terror charges in 2013 and held in prison, but never convicted. Earlier this year, after pleading for medical help, he died “handcuffed to the hospital bed,” according to his son Osama.

Egypt's prime minister Ibrahim Mahlab has asked justice minister Ahmed El-Zend to form an independent committee to investigate the case of a Thanaweya Amma (High School) student who got zero marks in all her summer exams, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported on Tuesday.

Sources within the Nour Party speaking on condition of anonymity said the party is not fielding Nader Bakkar, the party assistant president, in the upcoming parliamentary elections, replacing him instead with Ashraf Thabet, from the Western Delta constituency.

A Muslim Brotherhood leader has died in a Cairo prison, in the latest spate of deaths of anti-regime opponents in detention camps in Egypt.

Syrian state TV says seven people were killed and more than 40 wounded by a car bomb in the port city of Latakia.

Two bombs exploded Wednesday in front of a shopping mall in Qena, causing damage to some residential flats, state media reported.

Egypt's Grand Mufti Shawky Allam, one of the country's most senior religious authorities, denounced on Tuesday the Islamic State's burning of four Iraqi Shia fighters earlier this week, describing it as "barbaric and cowardly."

One of the most culturally significant pieces of architecture in the world has been destroyed, the United Nations said on Monday.

Police forces thwarted, in the early hours of Tuesday, a suicide bombing attempt that targeted a security checkpoint in the city of Al-Arish in the North Sinai governorate, according to a statement by the Ministry of Interior.

A suicide bombing attempt in North Sinai's al-Arish city was "thwarted" on Tuesday and the assailant was killed in a gunfire exchange, the Interior Ministry said.

Al Shabaab militants attacked an African Union (AU) base in southern Somalia early on Tuesday, the Islamist group and residents said, with unconfirmed reports that dozens of AU soldiers were killed.

The Islamic State jihadist group has blown up parts of the Temple of Bel in Syria's ancient city of Palmyra, a monitor and activists said.