Experts are in disagreement over the extent of the effect of Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian military aircraft on both the French attempt to form a large coalition including Russia and the US to fight “Islamic State” (IS), and the conflict in Syria.

Four people -- a judge, a prosecutor, and two security personnel -- were killed on Tuesday and 14 were injured in North Sinai's restive city of Al-Arish during attacks on a hotel where judges supervising the ongoing parliamentary polls were residing.

Since last month, US warplanes have struck Islamic State's oil infrastructure in Syria in a stepped-up campaign of economic warfare that the United States estimates has cut the group's black-market earnings from oil by about a third.

A teaching assistant at Al-Azhar University was suspended and referred to investigation for “inciting protests,” according to a Tuesday statement by the university.

A bomb exploded outside the offices of a Greek business federation in central Athens on Tuesday, badly damaging the nearby Cypriot Embassy but causing no injuries, police officials said.

Islamic State’s Egyptian branch claimed responsibility for a bombing that killed four people in a hotel in North Sinai capital al-Arish on Tuesday where judges overseeing a parliamentary election were staying.

The chaos and violence gripping the Middle East are not likely to evaporate even if the forces arrayed against the Islamic State group manage to crush the brutal army and its drive to establish an Islamic caliphate in Iraq and Syria and beyond.

A key member of a Saudi-led Arab coalition has blamed Islamists for delays in its military operations to expel Shiite Huthi rebels from the key southwestern province of Taez.

Cyprus was expected to deport six French citizens to Switzerland after they were detained at the island's main airport and suspected of links to extremist groups, Cypriot authorities said Monday.

A Islamic State fighter identified as Belgian urged his "brothers" abroad to follow the example of the Paris attacks, which he praised for bringing havoc to France, an Islamic State video published on Monday showed.

Anti-Muslim hate crimes rose 300 percent in Britain in the week following the coordinated attacks in Paris, according to figures published on Monday.

Egypt's bourse-listed Orascom Telecom Media and Technology (OTMT) plunged 2.94 percent in Sunday's trading to be sold at LE0.67 per share after the company said that sanctions on North Korea affect its ability to control its 75-percent-owned subsidiary there.

The son of Egypt’s former president, Mohamed Morsi, announced his wedding on Saturday. On his Facebook page, Osama Morsi said he married Israa al-Naggar, who belongs to their home province of Sharqiya.

Head of the Accountability State Authority (ASA) Hisham Genena invited Al-Azhar Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb to deliver a lecture on the sanctity of public assets, Youm7 reported Sunday.

A 26-year-old Muslim mother of two was killed by her family last week after having run away with a Christian neighbor, independent daily al-Tahrir reported.

Following the 25 January Revolution, many Coptic social movements were formed. These movements have challenged the hierarchical clerical order of the Coptic Orthodox Church, its Pope, and Bishops. Turning against such hierarchy, whose congregation is the biggest among the other Christian dominions in Egypt, has reflected a historical and critical yet unresolved debate. It has to do both with the ‘adequate’ leadership and, consequently, with the ‘suitable’ policies that should rule the lives of the Coptic Christian community.

It isn’t the first time Muslims have had to explain, in the aftermath of a terrorist attack in a western city, that Islam is not a religion of violence. After attacks in Paris, claimed by ISIS, which killed at least 129 on Friday evening, Islamist parties across the Middle East and Muslim groups in Europe and the United States were quick to condemn the assault. They denounced them as “a violation” of the principles of Islam and “far from religion”.

China vowed on Thursday to bring to justice those responsible for executing one of its citizens after Islamic State said it had killed a Chinese captive, the only known Chinese hostage to have been held by the group.

Officers from the Russian and French air forces held a phone call on Thursday to discuss joint efforts to fight Islamic State in Syria, the RIA news agency reported.

The Islamic State group executed five men it described as spies in Iraq's Anbar province, west of the capital, according to photos posted online.

Iraqi and American intelligence officials say the Islamic State group is aggressively pursuing development of chemical weapons, setting up a branch dedicated to research and experiments with the help of scientists from Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the region.