Syrian fighters backed by US special forces battled Thursday to clear the last remaining Islamic State (IS) militant group holed up in their crumbling stronghold of Raqa. Across the border in Iraq, security forces were attacking all remaining territory held by the extremists, who are fighting to prevent the all-out collapse of their self-proclaimed "caliphate".

In a push at dawn, Iraqi forces launched an operation on Thursday to retake the town of Hawija — one of the last extremist strongholds in Iraq — from the Islamic State group, according to a statement from the Iraqi prime minister s office. The operation began just two days after Iraqi forces began an offensive against IS holdouts in Iraq s vast western Anbar province, said Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi stated that it may take more time for the US to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group, expecting that the same issue may apply to the rest of the world. Al-Sisi’s statements came during a TV interview with the US based TV channel Fox News where he was hosted by the renowned anchor Sean Hannity. The interview was broadcast on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Theresa May is urging internet companies to block the spread of extremist material, calling on social media giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google to develop technologies that will prevent content from being posted in the first place. Britain’s leader will focus on the fight against extremist content during a meeting with internet companies Wednesday at the UN General Assembly in New York.

The Egyptian state gazette on Monday published a court order by a Cairo criminal court which added 215 people who are facing trial for membership of the Helwan Brigades militant group to the country s terror list. The defendants can appeal the new decision. In April, the Court of Cassation overturned a previous lower court order placing the defendants on the terror list, citing insufficient reasoning, and sent the case back to the lower court.

Two suicide bombers killed at least three people and wounded 34 on Tuesday in a northern Iraq restaurant frequented by militiamen battling the Islamic State (IS) militant group, security sources said. The twin bombings came just five days after a gun and bomb attack on a restaurant and nearby checkpoint in southern Iraq killed 84 people, the deadliest assault claimed by IS since their defeat in second city Mosul in July.

Iraq moved 500 wives of Islamic State group militants to a detention centre in preparation to deport them after they were captured along with 800 children, a councillor said Monday. The women and children were detained in Iraq s second city Mosul, capital of Nineveh province and IS s main stronghold in the country until Iraqi forces retook it in July.

The head of Tunisia s Islamist Ennahda party on Sunday said the country s first post-revolution municipal polls due in December would be postponed, probably until March next year. Rached Ghannouchi told private Shems FM radio: "We were not favourable to a postponement of the municipal elections but there are objective reasons for a delay."

The Cassation Court accepted on Saturday the appeal of former president Mohamed Morsi and reduced his sentenced in the “Qatar espionage” case to life in prison, from an original sentence of a total of 40 years. In June 2016, Morsi was sentenced to life in prison and an additional 15 years by the Cairo Criminal Court. Then, in November of the same year, the Appeals Court ordered a retrial.

The ISIS terrorist group has launched a large suicide attack against US forces in northern Iraq. According to Coalition reports, ISIS targeted an American base with four suicide bombers wearing explosive vests in the region of Hawija, north of Baghdad.

A blaze at an Islamic boarding school in the Malaysian capital killed at least 23 people on Thursday, most of them teenage boys who cried for help from barred windows, officials and witnesses said. The fire broke out at around 5.40 a.m. in a top-floor dormitory in the three-storey building, firemen said, where most of the students, aged between 13 and 17, were sleeping in bunk beds, with many of the windows covered by metal grills.

Police arrested a man today at Mar Girgis metro station in Old Cairo, on suspicion of stealing an artefact from the Coptic Museum, general-secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mostafa Amin, announced. Amin told Ahram Online that the alleged criminal was a security guard at the museum, and during his shift he chopped off a wooden decorative element from a door panel from the church of St Barbara. The man hid the stolen piece inside a plastic bag under his clothes and left the museum after finishing his shift.

Five militants and two Egyptian soldiers were killed on Wednesday in an exchange of gunfire following a failed attack on a military checkpoint in the restive North Sinai, Egypt s army said in a statement. The shootout took place after a militant wearing an explosive belt attempted to storm the checkpoint before he was killed by security forces, military spokesman Tamer El-Rifaei said in the statement.

After breaking an Islamic State (IS) militant group blockade, Syria s army is seeking to encircle the remaining jihadist-held parts of Deir Ezzor city, a military source said Wednesday. The city is the capital of oil-rich eastern Deir Ezzor province, regarded as a strategic prize by both Russian-backed Syrian troops and US-backed fighters.

A Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo earlier this week to resume talks which started in February regarding the the situation in the Gaza Strip and bilateral relations with Egypt. The delegation is led by the head of the political bureau of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in his first visit to Cairo since his election as the head of the group s political bureau in May.

The Bangladeshi prime minister was traveling Tuesday to struggling refugee camps that have absorbed hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fleeing violence in Myanmar in recent weeks — a crisis she said left her speechless. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina lambasted Myanmar for “atrocities” that she said had reached a level beyond description.

An attack by militants on a police convoy near Arish city in North Sinai on Monday has killed a number of policemen, the interior ministry has said, while anonymous sources told Al-Ahram Arabic s local correspondent, Hanaa El-Tabarani, that the number of dead has reached 18, with five injured. According to anonymous security sources quoted by Al-Ahram, militants remotely detonated an IED that destroyed three armoured security vehicles and a vehicle jamming system in a convoy 17km away from Arish.

Minya and Abu Qirqas Archeparchy reopened on Sunday Anba Paula church in Kedwan village and St.Mary church in Ezzbet al-Furn in Minya governorate, after numerous Copts complained of preventing them from praying in the two churches. His Grace Bishop Makarios, General Bishop of Minya and Abu Qirqas, praised President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s efforts to reopen the two churches, asserting that both Muslims and Copts live harmoniously in both villages.

Ten militants were killed and nine policemen were injured on Sunday in a shootout in central Cairo s Agouza district as police were executing a raid, according to a statement by the Ministry of Interior. Security forces had received information that a number of militants who escaped the restive North Sinai were hiding out in two apartments in Agouza and were planning a number of attacks in central governorates.

Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, Tawadros II, inaugurated the new Al-Malak Michael Monastery for nuns on Saturday in Melbourne city, during his visit to Australia which kicked off on August 30th. After the inauguration Pope Tawadros II recited a prayer of thanks and opened a new library at the Monastery of St. Anthony, for the the abbot of the White Monastery in Egypt, under the name Saint Shenoute, before inviting the Divine Liturgy inside the monastery.

Pope Francis will use his first full day in Colombia to send a message of unity, planting a tree of peace and saying a Mass to preach reconciliation in a nation bitterly divided after five decades of war. Francis received a tumultuous welcome on Wednesday afternoon. Screaming crowds mobbed the popemobile carrying the leader of the world s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics as it made its way slowly from the airport to the Vatican Embassy in central Bogota. Faithful threw flowers and held up children to be kissed.