Pope Francis on Wednesday denounced "shameful" attacks on Christians in Nigeria and the Central African Republic (CAR), calling for an end to "all hate and violence". "I have been profoundly saddened by the massacre last Sunday in Nigeria, inside a church, where innocent people were killed," the pontiff said at the end of his weekly public audience at the Vatican. "And sadly this morning we have news of violence in the Central African Republic against Christian communities.

Adel El-Shorbagy, the head of the Party Affairs Committee, which regulates political parties in Egypt, told reporters this week that the committee is currently investigating 10 Islamist parties. "The investigation encompasses participation in terrorist attacks, forming underground armed militias, inciting violence, and funding terrorism," said El-Shorbagy. El-Shorbagy s comments came after Egypt s Higher Administrative Court postponed on Sunday its ruling on the legal status of the Reconstruction and Development Party – which acts as the political arm of the Islamist group Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya – to 19 August.

French police shot and arrested a suspect in a dramatic motorway chase Wednesday after a car smashed into soldiers outside a barracks in a Paris suburb, injuring six. The suspected terror attack is the latest in a string of assaults that have hit France since January 2015, claiming more than 230 lives. The servicemen were hit by a BMW which drove down a quiet street in the upmarket western Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret at around 8:00 am (0600 GMT).

Al-Qaeda s leader has claimed in an online message that a German man believed to have provided logistical support to the Hamburg-based Sept. 11 hijackers has died. The announcement by Ayman al-Zawahri came in an Aug. 2 audio message in which he says a man he identifies as Zuhair al-Maghribi who worked for As-Sahab, the terror network s media arm, is a "martyr." He didn t provide details or say when and how al-Maghribi died.

Pakistani security forces killed four Taliban militants in the eastern city of Lahore hours after a truck bomb killed one person and wounded 22, authorities said on Tuesday. Attacks in Pakistan’s second-largest city have decreased over the past couple of years but Islamist militant groups are still active there, including a suicide bombing last month that killed 25 people.

Minya Criminal Court has handed down 12 death sentences and 157 life prison terms for crimes relating to the storming of a police station in 2013. The defendants were convicted on Monday of various acts of violence, including murder, as well as the storming of Matay police station and setting it on fire.

Coptic couples affected by personal status laws participated in a divorce ceremony on Saturday evening– the first of its kind for followers of the Christian sect. The participants celebrated their ‘second chance’, stressing the need to adopt a civil law that guarantees Copts the right to divorce and re-marry, and expressing condemnation of the Church’s negligence on the matter.

On 16 July, the Egyptian Armed Forces launched the fourth phase of Operation Martyr s Right, which aims to counter militant and terrorist activity in Sinai, 10 days after 26 Egyptian security personnel were killed in an attack in North Sinai s Rafah city. During the fourth stage of the operation, the army said that its forces killed 40 militants involved in the 7 July attack.

France has seen 271 Islamists militants return from war zones in Iraq and Syria and all of them are subject to investigation by public prosecutors, the country s interior minister said in a newspaper interview. Some 700 French nationals are estimated to have fought in Islamic State group ranks in Iraq and Syria, and like other European countries France has been wrestling with how to handle the flow of so-called returnees.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Thursday the country s intelligence agency had downgraded the threat level to aviation after an alleged "Islamic-inspired" plot to bring down a plane was uncovered and disrupted. Four men were arrested in raids in several suburbs in Sydney, Australia s largest city, at the weekend and held without charge under special terror-related powers. One man has since been released.

More than a hundred buses carrying thousands of al-Qaeda-linked fighters and Syrian refugees drove down a dirt road from Lebanon into Syria on Wednesday, in what was the last phase of an exchange deal between Syria s al-Qaeda branch and Lebanon s militant Hezbollah group. The departure of al-Qaeda fighters from the Lebanon-Syria border comes three years to the day its fighters stormed the Lebanese border town of Arsal and captured two dozen soldiers, killing some in captivity and releasing others. The group s presence in Lebanon has left scores of people dead.

Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a Shia mosque in Afghanistan that killed and wounded dozens of people on Tuesday, the group s official agency AMAQ said on Wednesday. "About 50 Shia were killed and 80 wounded in an attack by Islamic State militants yesterday on a Husseiniya in the city of Herat in western Afghanistan," AMAQ said.

A car bomb explosion in the southern Somali town of Kismayo wounded at least 10 people on Tuesday, police and residents said. The blast occurred on a busy road in the port city once prized by warlords and the Islamist militant group al Shabaab for its money-spinning charcoal trade, said Mohamud, a police officer who gave his first name only. "We believe it was a car bomb parked here in this busy street. So far we know 10 civilians were injured," he told Reuters.

Swedish radio says that U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces are holding Islamic State (IS) militants from Sweden. Tuesday s report comes as the U.S-backed forces are battling in northern Syria to retake the city of Raqqa, IS de facto capital of the militants self-proclaimed caliphate.

The Egyptian Cassation Court decided on Monday to acquit Mohamed al-Zawahiri, the brother of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, from charges of establishing and managing an affiliated terrorist group. Charges also included plans to attack state institutions and the Egyptian Armed Forces, according to the state-run official TV channel.

Uganda s military said on Monday it had lost 12 soldiers in an attack claimed by Shabaab militants in southern Somalia. The Al-Qaeda linked insurgents ambushed Ugandan troops that are part of an African Union force as they patrolled a supply route in the hotly-contested Lower Shebelle region, the military said in a statement.

Islamic State group claimed responsibility on Monday for a suicide attack that targeted the Iraqi embassy in the Afghan capital Kabul, the group s Amaq news agency reported. Afghan security forces battled gunmen near a police compound and the nearby Iraqi embassy on Monday. They said the attackers appeared to have taken cover in the embassy building in a business district of the city, from where smoke could be seen rising.

Hezbollah and the Nusra Front will exchange the corpses of fighters on Sunday in the first stage of a ceasefire agreement in the Lebanon-Syria border area, the Hezbollah-affiliated al-Manar television station reported. The ceasefire took effect on Thursday and will also involve the release of five Hezbollah prisoners and the departure of Nusra fighters to northern Syria along with any civilians who wish to go with them.

Pope Francis is urging the world to show a greater commitment to fighting human trafficking, which he called "a form of modern slavery."

Restorers working at the Monastery of St. Bishoy in the Wadi El-Natroun area have uncovered a number of medieval-era wall-paintings and architectural elements in the monastery s old church. “While removing the modern layer of mortar from the walls of the monastery s old church, several coloured wall-paintings were uncovered,” Mohamed Abdellatif, deputy antiquities minister for archaeological sites, told Ahram Online. He explained that the paintings date from between the 9th and 13th centuries AD, which will help archaeologists to determine the original architectural style of the church and the dates of its construction. According to historical books and religious documents, he said, the church was subjected to changes and modifications in its architecture in 840 AD, during the Abbasid era, and in 1069 AD, during the Fatimid caliphate.

Second Field Army forces destroyed on Wednesday three armed vehicles and three improvised explosive device (IED) workshops, in the fourth stage of the “Haq el-Shaheed” (translation: Martyr’s Right) operation, official spokesperson of the Armed Forces Colonel Tamer el-Refai announced.