Mohannad is a spy for Islamic State. He eavesdrops on chatter in the street markets of Mosul and reports back to his handlers when someone breaks the militant group's rules. One man he informed on this year – a street trader defying a ban on selling cigarettes – was fined and tortured by Islamic State fighters, according to a friend of Mohannad's family. If the trader did not stop, his torturers told the man, they would kill him.

In the first hearing of what is known as the "Rabaa dispersal case" Saturday, a Cairo court postponed proceedings to Feb. 6, when 739 defendants, including the Muslim Brotherhood's Supreme Guide, will face trial.

The Islamic State militants group on Thursday recaptured two areas in central Syria from government forces, just weeks after losing them, a monitor said.

Catholics should not try to convert Jews and should work with them to fight anti-Semitism, the Vatican said on Thursday in a major new document that drew the Church further away from the strained relations of the past.

Iraqi officials say Islamic State militants have destroyed a lock on the Euphrates River that served as a bridge in Ramadi as government forces close in on the militant-held city west of Baghdad.

The US-led coalition fighting Islamic State militants (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria has killed the group's finance minister and two other senior leaders in air strikes in recent weeks, a US military spokesman said on Thursday.

The Egyptian government committee tasked with listing and managing the Muslim Brotherhood’s funds announced yesterday that it has confiscated the assets of money exchange companies allegedly affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood in 12 governorates, in addition to one company working in the field of electronics and computers and a school.

The highest seat of Sunni Islam, Egypt’s Al-Azhar, said in a statement on Wednesday that it is “truly concerned over smear campaigns being launched against Muslims in America.”

Former president Mohamed Morsi's nephew and five others were granted a retrial on Wednesday over charges of involvement in the Sharqiya violence that broke out following Morsi's ouster in 2013.

Some 375 books authored by writers allegedly supporting the Muslim Brotherhood were seized in Delta’s Kafr el-Sheikh over “inciting violence and extremism,” Undersecretary of Awqaf (Religious Endowment) Ministry Saad el-Fekki told Youm7 Wednesday.

A suicide bomber attacked a Shiite mosque in Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 11 people and wounding 20 in an assault claimed by the Islamic State group.

The government committee tasked with managing funds of the Muslim Brotherhood group announced Wednesday it has seized 14 foreign exchange companies over affiliation with the banned group, Youm7 reported.

Egypt’s top Islamic Sharia legislation body Dar al-Iftaa has denounced a call by US presidential candidate Donald Trump to deny Muslims entry to his country as stirring “hatred” and a threat to peace.

A Salafi leader has called for appointing a representative for Egypt’s Jews in the 2015 parliament, although other Islamists saw their number is too small to have a representative.

Egypt denounced Tuesday U.S. republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s remarks that called for a travel ban for all Muslims to the United States.

Syria has become the pre-eminent global incubator for a new generation of militants after Islamist groups more than doubled the recruitment of foreign fighters to as much as 31,000 over the past 18 months, according to a former British spy chief.

Four security personnel were killed on Tuesday and four others wounded in a bomb attack in the restive North Sinai town of Rafah, security sources said.

Days after he and 11 others were spared a death sentence and a retrial was granted, Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie may also be spared a life sentence based on recommendations from prosecutors on Monday.

The Cairo Kafr el Sheikh Criminal Court has commuted 10-year prison sentence against 120 defendants, allegedly belong to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood (MB), to two years in jail over charges of inciting violence outside a police station following June 30 incidents, Youm7 reported.

The Court of Cassation postponed Monday its ruling on a retrial appeal submitted by the Muslim Brotherhood's Supreme Guide, his deputy and 13 other defendants in the "Guidance Bureau" case to Jan 4.

Excluding the Nour Party from Egypt’s political scene will force young Islamists to turn to violence, the chairman of the Salafi party said during a TV interview on Sunday.