Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II attempted on Monday to reassure Egyptians after the recent attacks on Copts in North Sinai, stressing that the Coptic families that have fled the governorate out of fear of terrorist violence will return to the city "when the time is right." At the start of this month, the Coptic Orthodox Church announced that 143 Christian families had fled North Sinai to Ismailiya after a spate of killings of Christians by Islamist militants in the governorate.

Islamic State's branch in the Sinai Peninsula posted a video on Tuesday depicting the beheading of two men the militant Islamist group said it had found guilty of practicing witchcraft and sorcery. The video, posted on a Telegram channel often used by IS, showed the group forming a religious police unit known as the Hasbah in northern Sinai, where it has waged an insurgency for years. The rugged, thinly populated peninsula borders Israel, Gaza and the Suez Canal.

Islamic State-affiliate Province of Sinai released a promotional video on Tuesday showing members of the organization carrying out what it alleges to be Hisba, or religious policing. The group claimed the footage is from locations in North Sinai, which it did not identify. Hisba is defined by religious scholars as the practice of commanding virtue and forbidding vice, professor of Islamic law professor at Al-Azhar University Ahmed Kareema told the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper. He added that Hisba should be conducted by a select few who must be efficient, fair, knowledgeable and capable, describing it as a type of guardianship falling to those who have been entrusted with religious matters.

France's attempts to counter the radicalization of its young people are in turmoil, with a group home intended to turn them away from Islamic extremism empty, the head of a highly publicized nonprofit convicted of misuse of public funds, and plans to segregate prison inmates suspected of harboring jihadi ideas abandoned. The results are both disappointing and unsurprising, according to a French senator who co-wrote a recent report highly critical of an effort she says was devised in haste and has been a waste of money.

Islamic State militant group (IS) claimed responsibility on Thursday for two suicide attacks that killed at least 31 people in Damascus on March 15. The group made the claim in its weekly online newspaper al-Nabaa. The newspaper said the two suicide bombers, identified by the group as Abu Musa al Golani and Abu Firas al Shami, had killed and injured over one hundred people in two separate attacks.

The Islamic State group threatened Iran for its role in the region's conflicts, in a rare Farsi-language propaganda video released on Monday. The 36-minute video, entitled "The Farsi Land: from Yesterday till Today", was issued through IS's social media channels from Diyala province in neighbouring Iraq.

The popular diplomacy delegation, consisting of a number of public figures and members of the House of Representatives (MPs), met Monday with the public figures of the Egyptian expatriate community in the states of New York and New Jersey. The chairman of the American Coptic Association (ACA), based in Jersey City, Adel Ageeb hosted a reception for the delegation in Paterson, New Jersey, in the presence of Ahmed Farouk, the Consul General of Egypt in New York.

The international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) published on Sunday a document entitled the "Coexistence Document" with others, four days after the terrorist attack in London that killed four people.

Ten people were killed Monday in a Islamist militants attack on a government building in southern Yemen that also saw 10 assailants die, including a suicide bomber, officials said.

A senior Al-Qaeda commander linked to major attacks in Pakistan including the bombing of a luxury hotel and an assault on a cricket team has been killed in a drone strike in Afghanistan, Washington said Saturday. Qari Yasin, a member of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan group (Pakistani Taliban), was killed on March 19 in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province, the Pentagon said.

At least 16 people were killed overnight in air strikes on a prison in the rebel-held city of Idlib in northwest Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said Saturday.

Police investigating the deadliest London terror attack in 12 years have arrested eight people in raids around Britain, as an ISIS-affiliated news agency claimed that the extremist group was behind the outrage. Prime Minister Theresa May revealed the perpetrator was British born and once linked to violent extremism, in a statement to Parliament a day after it was locked down when the assailant breached its perimeter.

The man who mowed down pedestrians and stabbed a policeman in an assault on the heart of British democracy was 52-year-old Khalid Masood, who was born in Kent in southeast England, police said on Thursday.

Foreign ministers from 68 countries meet in Washington on Wednesday to agree on the next steps to defeat Islamic State, the first such gathering of the US-led military coalition since the election of President Donald Trump in November.

A federal court has endorsed the planned deportation from Germany of two known Islamic extremists who are foreign nationals, although they were born in the country and there is no proof they committed a serious offense, bolstering government plans to expel more foreign nationals deemed dangerous.

Rebels and Islamist militants launched a fresh assault on east Damascus on Tuesday, just two days before another round of UN-backed peace talks get underway in Switzerland.

The Islamic militant group Hamas has drafted a new political program it hopes will improve ties with neighboring Egypt and the West, and present a more moderate image that will help it get off Western terrorism lists.

Three persons, including two children, were killed, and two others were injured on Monday as a missile fell on Central Sinai.

Syrian government forces on Monday regained control of parts of Damascus that were attacked and captured by rebels and militants the previous day, with the two-day fighting leaving dozens dead on both sides, the military and an activist group said.

Iran says it has reached an agreement with Saudi Arabia for 85,000 Iranian pilgrims to attend the hajj after Tehran boycotted last year's annual Muslim pilgrimage.

Egypt's army said it killed 18 “highly dangerous terrorists” in different parts of the restive North Sinai as well as arrested 37 suspects, two different statements on the army spokesman’s official Facebook page read.