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.

Russia s planned peace talks among Syrian groups will only succeed if the opposition ends its fight against the government, a senior adviser to President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday. "The success of the congress depends on the various opposition groups realising that the time has come to stop the violence, lay down their weapons and engage in a national dialogue," said Bouthaina Shaaban in comments to a Russian news agency carried by Syrian state media.

Syria s main opposition stuck by its demand on Thursday that President Bashar al-Assad play no role in an interim period under any U.N.-sponsored peace deal, despite speculation it could soften its stance because of Assad s battlefield strength. "The participants stressed that this (the transition) cannot happen without the departure of Bashar al Assad and his clique at the start of the interim period," opposition groups said in a communique at the end of a meeting in Saudi Arabia.

The Egyptian Second Field Army – who are assigned with the task of securing North Sinai and Ismailia from an extremist insurgency – killed four militants on Tuesday during operations against the Islamic State group. A statement released by the military’s official spokesperson said the operation resulted in the destruction of a large amount of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) which were in possession of the militants.

Leading Palestinian factions are meeting in Cairo on Tuesday to follow up on the implementation of a Palestinian reconciliation agreement brokered by Egypt on 12 October, mainly between Palestine s two major groups Fatah and Hamas. Senior Fatah official Azzam Al-Ahmed said in Cairo that the current round of meetings aims to discuss the mechanisms of implementing the deal and pushing forward the Palestinian reconciliation process, despite the “slow pace” in its implementation.

Egypt s military spokesman Tamer El-Refaie said in two official statements on Tuesday that the army has killed five terrorists during security operations in Sinai. El-Refaie said that the second field army killed four terrorists in North Sinai and destroyed a number of hideouts used to store improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

German police on Tuesday detained six Syrians suspected of planning an attack using weapons or explosives on behalf of the Islamic State militant group, prosecutors said. Police detained the suspects aged between 20 and 28 during raids in the cities of Kassel, Hanover, Essen and Leipzig, the general prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt said in a statement. Some 500 police officers took part in the raids during which eight apartments were searched.

A delegation of Coptic bishops traveled to London to participate in the enthronement ceremony of Abba Angelos, Bishop of London. The celebration was attended by the Egyptian ambassador to London, a number of British officials, Bishop Bakhomius, former acting Patriarch and Bishop Raphael, Secretary of the Holy Synod.

Egypt ranked 139th on the world peace index for 2017, jumping by 3 levels compared to 2016, according to a report by the Institute for Economics and Peace, issued on Sunday, which listed a total of 163 countries. The index measures the degree of peacefulness in accordance with three criteria: the level of security and safety in society, the level of domestic and global conflict, and the degree of military strength.

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.