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.

The Islamic State group claimed a major attack Sunday on Yemen s government bastion of Aden, which left eight police officers dead and sparked a hostage crisis that continued well into the day. The claim of the suicide attack on the security forces in the southern port city was made online by the extremist group s Aden and Abyan Wilayah, which said "clashes are still ongoing".

At least 20 people have been killed in a church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, according to Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt. Many more have been injured, authorities said Sunday.

Egypt s security forces killed five terrorists on Thursday who were attempting to attack a checkpoint in the border North Sinai region, where the military is fighting an Islamist insurgency, the military said in a statement. A group of "armed terrorist elements" opened fire at security forces stationed at the checkpoint, who returned fire, forcing the gunmen to flee and hide.

Egypt s Armed Forces announced on Wednesday that the joint military-police operation targeting terrorist hideouts in the Western Desert continued for the second day in a row, the Egyptian army said in a statement on Wednesday.

Egypt s Armed Forces announced on Wednesday that the joint military-police operation targeting terrorist hideouts in the Western Desert continued for the second day in a row, the Egyptian army said in a statement on Wednesday. The Egyptian air forces - supported by special army commandoes units (Sae ka) and police - carried out airstrikes in southern Fayoum, killing all terrorist targets.

Egypt has condemned a terrorist attack in New York City which saw eight people killed on Tuesday when a man in a rented truck drove into a busy bicycle path. In a statement released by the foreign ministry, Egypt expressed its sincere condolences to the families of the victims as well to the US government and the American people, wishing a speedy recovery for the injured.

Egyptian security forces freed on Tuesday a police officer who was kidnapped during the deadly shootout earlier this month between policemen and terrorists in Egypt’s Western Desert, state-owned news agency MENA reported. A security source told MENA that police officer Mohamed El-Hayes was freed in a morning operation.

Egypt’s air force on Monday carried out airstrikes on the hiding places of militants responsible for the El-Wahat El-Baheria attack that left at least 16 policemen dead, according to a statement released by the army’s official spokesperson. According to the statement, the airstrikes targeted the position of the militants in a mountainous area to the west of the Fayoum governorate close to El-Wahat road.

The US State Department published their annual international religious report on the conditions of religious freedom in nearly 200 countries worldwide. According to the report, religious minorities in Egypt still face extreme terrorist threats and sectarian violence. The report points out that the Egyptian government still refuses to recognize religions, namely Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons and the Baha’is despite the Egyptian constitution of 2014, which states Egyptians are free to follow and exercise any religion.

The bodies of 36 people shot dead have been found near Benghazi, in eastern Libya, a security official said Sunday. The bodies, found in Al-Abyar, around 70 kilometres (45 miles) east of Benghazi, were of suspected Islamist militants including 19 foreigners, the official said.

Somali security forces have ended a night-long siege by at a Mogadishu hotel by five extremist attackers who stormed the building after a suicide car bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at the entrance gate on Saturday afternoon. The attack killed 23 people.

Heavy clashes between Syria s army and the Islamic State group in Deir Ezzor city have killed at least 73 fighters in the last 24 hours, a monitor said Sunday. Syria s army controls most of Deir Ezzor city, capital of Deir Ezzor province in the country s east, and made further advances after responding to an IS group attack that began Saturday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

The Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo has proposed a new law to the Egyptian Parliament which would fine and potentially jail journalists if they use colloquial language instead of formal Arabic in their published materials. The academy, which was established in 1934 in Zamalek for the preservation and modernization of the Arabic language, conducts linguistic research and regularly publishes updated Arabic dictionaries.

Six alleged terrorists were killed in a military operation in North Sinai on Monday amid the ongoing military operations fighting terrorism, Military Spokesperson Tamer Al-Refaie said in a statement. In a statement, Al-Refaie said that the second field army forces received intelligence information that there is a terror den. Forces destroyed the den and preserved a huge amount of arms and ammunition.

Russia cast a veto at the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday preventing the renewal of the mandate for a mission that investigates the use of chemical weapons in Syria. The investigation by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) - known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) - was unanimously created by the 15-member U.N. Security Council in 2015 and renewed in 2016 for another year. Its mandate is due to expire in mid-November.

A preliminary study carried out on the Coptic tombstone recently discovered in Luxor reveals that it belonged to a little girl named "Takla," who died at the age of ten sometime between the 7th and 10th centuries AD. The study also found that the Coptic inscription found above the carved cross is an abbreviation for the name of "Jesus," Mostafa Waziri, Secretary-General of Egypt s Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Ahram Online.

The Ministry of Antiquities announced discovering a Coptic tombstone on Sunday at the eastern side of the Avenue of Sphinxes beneath Al-Mathan bridge in Luxor. The discovery saw the light through an excavation work on the hands of an Egyptian archaeological mission. The announcement was declared by Dr. Mostafa Waziri, the Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in a press release published at the Ministry of Antiquities official Facebook page.

Armed Forces spokesperson Tamer al-Refaei puboished a video on his Facebook page of Egypt’s air force thwarting an attempt by smugglers to infiltrate the western border. The armed forces said in a statement on Monday that the operation resulted in the destruction of eight four-wheel vehicles loaded with weapons, ammunition and highly explosive materials. They added that smugglers in the vehicles were killed.