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.

South Cairo Criminal Court ruled on Tuesday to place head of the Strong Egypt Party Abdel Moniem Aboul-Fotouh, along with 15 others, on a terrorism list, state news agency MENA reported. The opposition figure was arrested on Wednesday night on charges of being affiliated with Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood (MB) group.

Pro-Syrian government forces entered Syria s northwestern Afrin region on Tuesday to help a Kurdish militia there fend off a Turkish assault, raising the prospect of a wider escalation of the conflict. Soon after the convoy of militia fighters - waving Syrian flags and brandishing weapons - entered Afrin, Syrian state media reported that Turkey had targeted them with shellfire.

Head of the Misr al-Qawya Party (Egypt Strong Party) and former-Islamist presidential candidate Abdel Moneam Abu al-Fotouh refused to answer questions during interrogations by the Supreme State Security Prosecution on Sunday regarding his relationship with the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group following accusations that he had been one of its leaders when he was a university student. Abu al-Fotouh admitted that he had met a number of MB leaders abroad after it was revealed that Egypt’s security services had monitored the meetings.

Four “takfiris” were killed by the Egyptian Armed Forces in northern and central Sinai, the army said in a statement on Monday, as comprehensive Operation Sinai 2018 enters its second week. The term “takfiri” refers to Sunni Muslims who accuse other Muslims of being infidels, often as a justification for using violence against them.

Egypt s Ministry of Interior said in a statement on Thursday that the head of the Strong Egypt Party Abdel-Moneim Abul Fotouh plotted with members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood to destabilise the country ahead of the upcoming presidential elections.

Egypt s Armed Forces launched on Monday a number of hotlines for citizens to “report terrorists and places where they are suspected to be,” according to a statement by the military.

Police investigating an incident in Britain s parliament on Tuesday were dealing with a suspect package, news website MailOnline said, citing witnesses. Earlier, a spokesperson for the lower house of the legislature said police were investigating an incident but provided no further details.

The Egyptian Armed Forces announced that the ongoing operations in Sinai has killed 10 militants, raising the number of extremists killed since Friday—when the extensive Sinai 2018 operation began—to 38. Military spokesperson Tamer El-Refaei said in a statement that around 400 suspects were arrested, adding that they include foreigners. He added that the navy has fired four missiles.

Egypt s Criminal Court has handed a final death sentence to a man convicted of the October 2017 killing of a Coptic priest in a northeastern suburb of Cairo. The court s verdict comes two months after it convicted 19-year-old Ahmed El-Sonbaty and issued a preliminary death sentence.

Another 143 Turkish soldiers were wounded in the operation dubbed "Olive Branch" which began on January 20 against the Syrian Kurdish People s Protection Units (YPG) militia in the western region of Afrin, a statement said. While the United States has given armed support to the YPG against the Islamic State group in Syria, Turkey says the militia is a "terrorist" offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Egypt s presidential spokesman Bassam Rady affirmed in press statements on Sunday that the current "Sinai 2018" comprehensive military operation is a more sophistocated and extensive successor to a previous series of operations dubbed "Martyrs Right," the first phase of which was launched in 2015 as part of Egypt s wider war on terror. The current military operation involves all branches of Egyptian armed land, naval and air forces, as well as the police and border guards.

The UN s top human rights official on Saturday said 230 civilians were killed in the past week by a government offensive backed by Russian airstrikes, warning the attacks may constitute war crimes. “The past week has been one of the bloodiest periods of the entire conflict, with wave after wave of deadly airstrikes leading to civilian casualties in areas of Eastern Ghouta and Idlib,” said Zeid Ra ad al-Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights.

The US State Department has recently placed Hasm (Decisiveness) and Lewaa Al-Thawra (Revolution Brigade) on its list of terrorist organisations. The two groups, which Egypt has has said are affiliated to the banned Muslim Brotherhood, were branded as terrorists on the UK s list in December 2016.

Syria s state media say the U.S.-led coalition has bombed government-backed troops in eastern Syria, citing reports of dozens killed and wounded. The official state news agency SANA reported on Thursday that the overnight attack hit tribal fighters in Khusham, a town in the oil-rich Deir el-Zour province.

US authorities said Tuesday they had arrested a longtime Saudi resident of Oklahoma who had trained with Al-Qaeda and sought flying lessons. The Department of Justice said Naif Abdulaziz Alfallaj, 34, applied in 2000 to attend the same Al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, called al-Farouq, where several of the September 11 hijackers had trained.

Renewed government strikes killed 32 civilians on Wednesday in a rebel-held enclave near Damascus, where overwhelmed medics were still treating survivors of the Syrian conflict s bloodiest day in months. The district of Eastern Ghouta, controlled by rebel factions including Islamists, suffered some of its worst bloodshed in years on Tuesday, when 80 civilians were killed.

Yemeni Nobel Prize winner Tawakkol Karman was suspended from an Islamist party allied with President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after she accused the Saudi-led coalition that backs him in the country s civil war of acting as occupiers. Karman won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her role in Arab Spring protests that ousted authoritarian President Ali Abdullah. More recently she has ramped up public criticism of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, accusing them of backing a campaign to divide Yemen by supporting southern separatists against the internationally recognised government.

Egypt s high military appeals court upheld on Tuesday death sentences handed to two defendants over the August 2013 murder of two police personnel in North Sinai. A first-degree military court originally sentenced the pair to death in 2015 for their involvement in the militant attack on Al-Gora checkpoint in the North Sinai city of Al-Arish, and for possessing illegal firearms.