Iraqi forces battled the last Islamic State (IS) militant group holdouts in Mosul on Wednesday, a day after the country s premier feted the "major victory" over IS in the northern city. In neighbouring Syria, US-backed forces gained ground after air strikes by the international anti-IS coalition punched holes in the wall of the Old City in Raqa, where they are waging a parallel offensive against IS. "Today, our advance was easier than yesterday," said Lieutenant Colonel Haider Hussein, a commander in Iraq s elite Counter-Terrorism Service.

Iraqi forces slowed their advance on Tuesday through the last streets in Mosul controlled by Islamic State (IS) group where militants and civilians are packed in densely together, a commander said. While Iraqi commanders predicted final victory in Mosul this week, U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces announced they had begun an assault on IS Syrian redoubt in the Old City of Raqqa. The Iraqi military has pushed insurgents into a shrinking rectangle no more than 300 by 500 metres beside the Tigris river in Mosul; but the resistance has been fierce. The Rapid Response Division, an elite Interior Ministry unit, called in air strikes just 50 metres away from their targets, and the fighting got close enough at one point for the militants to toss a hand grenade at the troops.

Egypt s Court of Cassation upheld a final death sentence Tuesday for two defendants found guilty of murder and related crimes during violent incidents in the coastal city of Alexandria following the ouster of former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, state news agency MENA reported. The court also upheld jail sentences ranging from 10 to 25 years for 59 defendants in the case and acquitted three others.

Egypt has notices to Interpol calling for the arrest of fugitive members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood group who are currently residing in Qatar and Turkey, state-run MENA news agency reported, citing a security source.

With the fight for Mosul in its final stage Monday, Islamic State militants sent female suicide bombers hidden among fleeing civilians, while Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led coalition unleashed punishing airstrikes and artillery fire that set dozens of buildings ablaze. At least one Iraqi soldier was killed and five were wounded in the two separate suicide attacks, the military said. On Sunday, a bomber in women s clothing killed 14 people at a camp for displaced residents in Anbar province, a provincial official said.

A Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo on Sunday for talks with Egyptian officials on security issues and Cairo s assistance to the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip.

A Cairo criminal court on Sunday sentenced 20 defendants to death for their involvement in an attack on Kerdasa police station in August 2013 in which 12 policemen were killed, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported. The court also handed life sentences to 80 defendants, 15-year terms to 35 defendants, and acquitted another 21. The convicted have the right to appeal the verdict before the Court of Cassation.

Gunmen attacked a UN convoy on Wednesday near Zawiyah, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of the Libyan capital, a security source in the town said. The source was unable to say whether there were any casualties among the seven members of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) who came under attack.

A former Moroccan regional lawmaker, who the government says may have been funding civil unrest, has been arrested in the Netherlands where he lives, the Moroccan and Dutch governments said on Thursday. Morocco had recalled its ambassador in the Hague at the weekend over what it described as the Netherlands failure to "take measures against" Said Chaaou, 50, who it suggested was involved in providing "financial and logistical support" in Morocco s Rif region, the centre of months of protests.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an air strike early on Wednesday killed at least 30 civilians and injured dozens more in a village held by Islamic State group in eastern Syria. The strike, in al-Dablan, about 20 km (13 miles) southeast of al-Mayadeen on the west bank of the Euphrates, is the second in 48 hours that the Observatory says has killed dozens of people.

Six people have been arrested in Spain, Britain and Germany accused of links to the Islamic State group , and the indoctrination and radicalisation of potential members, the Spanish interior ministry said on Wednesday. The arrests, organised by Spanish police in conjunction with police in Germany and Britain, detained four people in Palma de Mallorca, one in Britain and one in Germany, the ministry said.

Iraqi forces on Tuesday pushed towards the river side of Mosul s Old City, their key target in the eight-month campaign to capture Islamic State group s de-facto capital, and Iraq s prime minister predicted victory very soon. Iraqi forces, battling up to 350 militants dug in among civilians in the Old City, said federal police had dislodged IS group insurgents from the Ziwani mosque and were only a few days away from ousting militants completely from the Old City. "The victory announcement will come in a very short time," Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on his website on Monday evening.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday dozens of people were killed in an air strike believed to have been carried out by the U.S.-led coalition on an Islamic State group prison in eastern Syria. The U.S.-led coalition said it would look into the report. The Observatory said the air strike took place on Monday at dawn, hitting a building in the town of al-Mayadeen that was being used as a prison. It said at least 42 people were killed, identifying them as prisoners of Islamic State group.

Ohio officials say they ve restored 11 government websites that were hacked with a message purporting to be supportive of the Islamic State group. A spokesman for the Department of Administrative Services says affected websites were restored by Monday morning. That department is working with public safety officials to investigate how sites were hacked Sunday with a message that ended with: "I love the Islamic state."

Islamic State group fighters launched a string of counterattacks in a western Mosul neighborhood that had recently been declared free of the militant group, setting off clashes that continued overnight, Iraqi officials said Monday. By daylight, the situation was calm and the fighting had subsided, according to army spokesman Brig. Gen. Mohammed al-Khodari.

Egypt s Ministry of Interior said on Friday that police have killed one of the leaders of militant group Hasm in 6 October city during a shootout. A statement on the ministry s Facebook page said that the National Security Agency received information that a meeting of Hasm, which is designated a terrorist organisation by the state, was set to be held in the area of Wahat Road.

Six people were arrested on Saturday for planning to carry out terrorist attack on a Christian church in Alexandria, Egypt’s Interior Ministry said in a statement. The statement said that one of the attackers was planning to detonate an explosive vest inside the church and another to blow himself up when police arrived to the scene. According to the ministry, the attacks were set to take place during Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of Ramadan.

Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb announced that al-Azhar on Wednesday submitted to the presidency a bill to resist “hatred and violence in the name of religion”. Due to anomalies and strange religious opinions that spread in the Egyptian society despite violating Islam and Sharia, Tayeb and other Al-Azhar senior scholars submitted the “counter-hatred and violence in the name of religion draft law”, Tayeb said at the end of a celebration with Laylat al-Qadr on Wednesday evening.

Slightly hot weather is expected during Eid al-Fitr along the northern coasts; it will be hot and humid in Lower Egypt, Cairo, the Suez Canal cities and northern Upper Egypt; and very hot and dry in the south, especially during daylight hours, said the Chairman of the Egyptian Meteorological Authority, Ahmed Abdel Aal, in a statement Thursday.

Pope Francis is offering 460,000 euros (more than $500,000) in aid for South Sudan to help finance two hospitals, a school and farm equipment. Francis had hoped to visit South Sudan in October to draw attention to the plight of its people faced with starvation and civil war, but called off the trip because the conditions wouldn t permit it.

Belgian counter-terrorism police are investigating the motives of a suspected suicide bomber shot dead by troops guarding a Brussels railway station after he set off explosives that failed to injure anyone. "We consider this a terrorist attack," prosecutor Eric Van Der Sypt said, declining to comment on witness accounts that the man had shouted Islamist slogans before detonating what witnesses said were one or two devices in luggage.