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.

Egypt’s Al-Nour Party, the country’s largest Salafi party, declared on Sunday that they are officially supporting President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi’s second presidential bid and that its members will vote for the incumbent in the upcoming polls. During a press conference held at the party’s main headquarters in Cairo, the head of Al-Nour Younis Makhyoun said that after consultations with the heads of the party’s different branches around Egypt, they decided to support Sisi in the upcoming presidential elections.

France would intervene if a French jihadist were condemned to death in Iraq or Syria, the country s justice minister Nicole Belloubet said on Sunday. The possibility of such an event has arisen after an Iraqi court this month sentenced to death a German woman of Moroccan origin for membership of Islamic State.

The Egyptian cabinet has ratified a law establishing the Supreme Council for Combating Terrorism and Extremism (SCCTE), modifying Presidential Decree 355/2017 which created the National Council for Combating Terrorism and Extremism. The cabinet said the SCCTE will act to motivate state institutions and society to eradicate terrorism and trace its funding.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told U.S. President Donald Trump in a phone call on Wednesday that U.S. troops should withdraw from northern Syria s Manbij region, Turkey s foreign minister said on Thursday. On Wednesday, prior to his phone call with Trump, Erdogan said Turkey would extend its military operation in Syria to the town of Manbij, a move that could potentially bring Turkish forces into confrontation with those of their NATO ally the United States.

Pope Tawadros II, the head of Egypt s Coptic Orthodox Church, met with senior writers and journalists at Al-Ahram headquarters in downtown Cairo on Tuesday to inaugurate an exhibition displaying some of the paper s oldest editions and historic belongings. During the visit, the pope met with Al-Ahram Chairman Abdel-Mohsen Salama, Editor-in-Chief Alaa Thabet as well as a number of the organization s senior writers and officials.

French President Emmanuel Macron expressed concerns to Turkey s Tayyip Erdogan in a phone call on Tuesday following the Turkish military intervention in the Syrian enclave of Afrin. "Taking into account Turkey s security imperatives, the president expressed to his Turkish counterpart his concerns following the military intervention launched on Saturday in Afrin," Macron s office said in a statement.

Egypt s interior ministry said Tuesday that six terrorists were killed in a shootout with police during a raid on a militant hideout in North Sinai. Security forces tracked a group of terrorists who plotted to increase attacks against security forces as the country celebrates national police day on Thursday, the ministry said in a statement.

Egyptian prison authorities affiliated with the Ministry of Interior executed a defendant named Mohamed Ahmed Abu Srei, convicted of carrying out a deadly attack and killing an army outpost officer in Ismailia in 2013. Security and legal sources told Daily News Egypt that the execution took place in a Cairo prison, after the Military Court in Ismailia approved the death sentence, adding that the defendant was a member of the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group.

Egyptian TV channels have accused Lieutenant General Sami Hafez Anan, a candidate in the 2018 Egyptian presidential elections, of forming an “alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood”.

A worker with an analysis tests laboratory opened fire on a car belonging to the patron of a church in Abu Qarqas, south of Minya, targeting the driver because of a previous relationship between the son of the driver and the assailant s nephew.

The unnamed woman, who has been sentenced to death by hanging, fled Germany with her two children who then married members of the brainwashed death cult.

In the highest-level American official visit to Egypt Since 2009, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi received on Saturday US Vice President Mike Pence at the presidential palace in Cairo. The American official has started a Middle East tour that also includes Jordan and Israel with the aim to boost peace process in the region.

Egyptian police forces killed Sunday a dangerous arms smuggler during a shootout at a checkpoint in Upper Egypt s Qena governorate, an interior ministry statement said.

An Egyptian court sentenced on Sunday five members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group to life imprisonment terms over charges of violence.

Addressing the "World Conference in Support of Jerusalem", Al-Azhar Deputy Imam Abbas Shoman stressed al Azhar s firm rejection against visiting Jerusalem under Israeli occupation, noting that visiting it under the current conditions would only lead to grave consequences.

Earlier in January, al-Azraa (Virgin Mary) Church and Mar Girgis Church in the village of Sheikh Alaa at Minya officially opened their doors as legally-recognized churches for the first time, despite being built in 2015, state-news agency MENA reported.

On the first day of this year, Egypt s Grand Mufti Shawki Allam rang in 2018 with a sternly worded fatwa (religious edict) that Bitcoin trades lead its users to “fraud, betrayal and ignorance”.

An Egyptian military court on Wednesday sentenced eight people to death, including four in absentia, for alleged involvement in acts of violence in 2015, according to a local judicial source.