Iraqi forces started pushing into the city of Fallujah on Monday as a wave of bombings claimed by the Islamic State group in Baghdad and near the Iraqi capital killed at least 24 people.

Iran said on Sunday its pilgrims would not attend the annual Muslim hajj pilgrimage, blaming regional rival Saudi Arabia for "sabotage" and failing to guarantee the safety of pilgrims.

With Minya prosecutors releasing on Sunday five defendants on bail who were suspected to have been involved in sectarian attacks against Christians in the Upper Egyptian governorate last week, some fear that possible attempts to reach reconciliation may result in the assailants escaping justice.

A suicide bomber blew himself up on Sunday among young Iraqis assembled in a cafe in Moqdadiyah, northeast of Baghdad, killing at least seven people, police said.

Iraq's special forces completed a troop buildup around Fallujah on Sunday ahead of an operation to retake the Islamic State-held city west of Baghdad, a military officer said, as the militants attacked a newly-liberated town to the west.

Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb met with delegation from the Egyptian community in Paris on Sunday, the final official event in the Muslim cleric's visit to the French capital.

The United States is "two-faced" for refusing to call the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia terrorists, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday, reflecting Ankara's growing irritation at Washington's backing of the group.

Security authorities have announced the arrest of five suspects in connection with a recent bout of sectarian violence between Copts and Muslims in Minya last week. According to a statement issued on Thursday, a further 10 suspects are being sought by security forces.

The head of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church Pope Tawadros II called for restraint and coexistence after a sectarian attack by a mob of Muslims against Christians in Upper Egypt’s Minya governorate.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi called on officials to hold accountable the perpetrators of an attack by a Muslim mob on Christians in a village in Upper Egypt, according to a Thursday statement by his office.

The Coptic Orthodox Coptic Church has said that a mob attacked Christian homes in a village in Minya last Friday, and stripped an older Christian woman of her clothes in the attack. The governor, however, denied the woman was stripped, describing the whole incident as "casual" in a TV interview.

The United States and its allies said they targeted Islamic State on Wednesday with two dozen strikes in Iraq, including four near Falluja, where Iraqi forces have launched a recent effort to retake the city from the militant group.

Egyptian military forces have killed 13 militant suspects and injured four others in different parts of the restive North Sinai Tuesday amid an ongoing military campaign against terrorists, Youm7 reported anonymous security official.

Iraqi forces shelled Islamic State targets in Falluja on Tuesday, the second day of an assault to retake the militant stronghold just west of Baghdad, as international concern mounted for the security of civilians.

Egypt’s Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, voiced Al-Azhar’s support to France against terrorism, noting that all people and countries should unite to ideologically fight extremism, according to a statement from al-Azhar Sheikhdom Wednesday.

A Kenyan military official says Kenyan troops in Somalia killed 21 suspected al-Shabab extremists who were plotting an ambush in southern Somalia.

Egypt's Court of Cassation accepted an appeal against a five-year prison sentence and an EGP 100,000 fine for five female Al-Azhar University students arrested while protesting on campus in 2013.

Egypt Al-Azhar's Grand Imam Ahmed Al-Tayeb arrived on Tuesday in Paris where he is expected to meet with French President Francois Hollande to discuss efforts to fight extremism and terrorism.

A delegation from Islamic Jihad, a leading Palestinian Islamist organisation, conducted talks on Tuesday in Cairo with Egyptian General Intelligence officials on reconciliation efforts among various Palestinian factions.

The death of the leader of the Afghan Taliban in a U.S. drone strike last week could make the insurgent movement stronger by bringing back dissident commanders and unifying the movement’s ranks, a senior Afghan Taliban figure said on Tuesday.

After a US air strike killed a Tunisian jihadist commander in western Libya in late February, dozens of Islamic State fighters sneaked across the border into Tunisia and attacked an army barracks and police bases in the town of Ben Guerdane.