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 Syrian army and its allies took complete control over Albu Kamal, Islamic State’s last significant town in Syria, a military news service run by Hezbollah said on Sunday. The army had declared victory over Islamic State in Albu Kamal earlier this month but the jihadists then staged a counter-attack using sleeper cells hidden in the town.

Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi met on Sunday a delegation of leading figures from Evangelical churches around the world as part of the Egyptian Evangelical Churchs celebration of the start of the Evangelical Reformation 500 years ago. According to the Egyptian presidency, Sisi congratulated the Evangelical church representatives on the anniversary during the meeting in Cairo, expressing the countrys appreciation for Evangelical Egyptians.

Egyptian army spokesman Tamer El-Refaie said in a statement on Thursday that law enforcement forces of the Second Field Army have targeted terrorist hideouts in North Sinai during the recent days, killing 3 high-risk terrorists and arresting 74 others suspected of supporting terrorist elements. The statement said that the raids came as part of wider Armed Forces efforts to pursue terrorists and criminal elements.

The Islamic State (IS) militant group has lost 95 percent of the cross-border "caliphate" it declared three years ago in Iraq and Syria, the US-led coalition fighting it has said. "Since our coalition was formed in 2014, ISIS has lost 95 percent of the territory it once controlled in Iraq and Syria," Washington s envoy to the coalition, Brett McGurk, said late Wednesday after a meeting in Jordan, using an alternative acronym for IS.

Egypt s top appeals court upheld on Wednesday a life sentence against Muslim Brotherhood chief Mohamed Badie and 35 others convicted of involvement in violence that broke out in the aftermath of the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. The Court of Cassation also upheld various jail terms against 20 others. Out of the total 105 defendants in the original case, 49 were sentenced in absentia and 20 were found not guilty.

The United States military has carried out an air strike in Somalia against al Shabaab, an al Qaeda-linked Islamist insurgency that wants to topple the U.N.-backed government, the U.S. Africa Command said on Wednesday. It said "several militants" were killed in the strike 60 miles northwest of the capital, Mogadishu, on Tuesday at about 1500 GMT. It was coordinated with the Somali government, AfriCom said in a statement.

A high military court in Ismailia has rejected appeals by fifteen terrorists convicted of killing soldiers in North Sinai, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported on Monday, confirming the death penalties issued to them. The defendants were found guilty of killing two army officers and seven soldiers and attempting to bomb a security patrol in Arish city in 2013.

Egypt s Court of Cassation overturned on Tuesday death sentences and ordered a retrial for five defendants accused of forming a terrorist cell affiliated with the banned Muslim Brotherhood organisation in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura. A Mansoura criminal court had convicted the defendants in March 2015.

IS militants regained control of Albu Kamal, their last stronghold inSyria, after Iranian-backed militias who claimed to have captured the city a few days earlier were ambushed and forced to retreat, tribal leaders, residents and a war monitor said on Monday. Fighters from Lebanese Shia Hezbollah in Syria who joined forces with Iraqi Shia fighters crossing the border into Syria were taken by surprise by militants hiding inside tunnels in the heart of the city they said they had taken on Wednesday, they said.

The Paris and Brussels attacks, a botched shooting on a high-speed train and a foiled plot in Belgium may have all been part of one big Islamic State group operation, Belgium s federal prosecutor said Monday. Speaking on the second anniversary of the November 13 Paris attacks, chief prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw confirmed for the first time what investigators have been saying privately about the possible links.

Fellow of the UN High Commissioner for Minority Affairs, Joseph Malak, sent an official warning on Sunday to Prime Minister Sherif Ismail as well as ministries of interior, local development, parliamentarian affairs and governor of Alexandria, calling on them to cancel the decisions that ordered the closure of churches in Egypt. Malak, who is also a lawyer, resorted to Egypt’s 2013 Constitution and Law 80 of 2016 pertaining to building churches as well as ministerial decree no 199 of 2017 on the formation of a commission for regulating the statues of existing churches, which says that all existing churches in Egypt are licensed.

A little-known militant group called Jund al-Islām, inspired by Al-Qaeda ideology, declared on Saturday that it carried out a military attack against the Islamic State’s Egyptian branch Sinai Province, describing the group as ‘Kharijites,’ or apostates. Through a voice statement, Jund al-Islām explained that the Sinai Province is violating Islamic Sharia law because it targets civilians and brands them as apostates.

Syria s army declared victory over Islamic State (IS) militants on Thursday, saying its capture of the jihadists last town in the country marked the collapse of their project in the region. The army and its allies are still fighting IS in desert areas near Albu Kamal, the last town the militant group had held in Syria, near the border with Iraq, the army said.

With the Islamic State group crumbling in Iraq and Syria, Afghanistan mired in crisis and Russia looming large, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has plenty of pressing issues to tackle with NATO allies this week. The Pentagon chief arrives at the alliance s Brussels headquarters Wednesday for two days of talks with fellow NATO defence ministers and a separate meeting with partners from the coalition fighting IS group in the Middle East, where the jihadists continue to lose territory.

Pro-government media say Syrian troops and allied fighters have completely encircled the last Islamic State-held town. Al-Manar TV, the media arm of the Lebanese Hezbollah group, said Wednesday that troops have surrounded the eastern town of Boukamal, on the border with Iraq. The Central Military Media Center, an outlet affiliated with the Syrian military, said Syrian troops and allied fighters have begun entering the town. There was no immediate independent confirmation.

Russia opposes a draft U.N. resolution to extend the mandate of an international inquiry into chemical weapons attacks in Syria, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Wednesday. Ryabkov s comments came hours after Russia rejected a report by the international inquiry blaming the Syrian government for a deadly toxic gas attack, casting doubt on the U.N. Security Council s ability to extend the investigation s mandate before it expires next week.

Egypt s Court of Cassation overturned on Tuesday death sentences and ordered a retrial for four defendants accused of belonging to a terrorist cell in Tanta and Alexandria. The court also overturned 10 to 15-year prison sentences for eight other defendants in the same case.

The Grand Imam of al-Azhar Ahmed el-Tayeb met with the Pope Francis of the Catholic Church in the Vatican on Tuesday to follow up on the mutual efforts for peace building that were discussed during the conference for World Peace organized by al-Azhar in April. During his visit to Italy, Tayeb is scheduled to meet Italian Prime Minster Paolo Gentiloni, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Angelino Alfano and speaker of the Italian Senate Pietro Grasso to discuss ways of spreading a culture of coexistence and peace and to renounce violence, hatred and Islamophobia.