In June, Pope Francis released his first independent encyclical. It merely served to highlight the indifference to the plight of persecuted Christians around the world.

Pope Francis will dispatch a delegation to attend the inauguration ceremony of the New Suez Canal on, Egypt’s ambassador to the Holly See Wafaa Basim said Thursday.

The Egyptian court was to conclude Thursday one of Egypt’s most debated cases since the toppling of the Muslim Brotherhood’s regime, also among the longest trial the country has witnessed recently: the infamous “Al-Jazeera case.”

Deputies of the Islamist movement Hamas which rules Gaza on Wednesday renewed calls for a "revolt" against the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority over its sweeping arrests of anti-Israeli fighters.

At least 18 people were killed Thursday when Islamic State group jihadists attacked a town in northern Syria recently captured by Kurdish forces, a monitor said.

The co-leader of Turkey's main Kurdish party on Thursday dismissed air strikes and police raids by Ankara against Islamic State (IS) jihadists as a "show", saying their real target was Kurdish militants.

The Afghan government is investigating reports that Mullah Omar, leader of the Afghan Taliban, is dead, a spokesman for the president's office said on Wednesday.

The situation in Egypt's Sinai peninsula does not stop at the death toll, updated almost daily, yet extends to involve entire families which have been displaced from the peninsula's Rafah and Sheikh Zuweid towns, escaping the ongoing fighting and shelling.

A car bomb exploded outside an Ismaili mosque in an eastern district of the Yemen’s war-damaged capital Sanaa on Wednesday, killing three people and wounding seven, a security source said.

A policeman was killed and three others were injured when unidentified assailants opened fire at security forces outside the Embassy of Niger in Cairo, the interior ministry announced early Wednesday.

The visit by Hamas Politburo Chief Khaled Meshaal to Saudi Arabia and his meeting with King Salman Bin Abdel-Aziz raised the issue of how the kingdom has opened up to the group under King Salman’s reign. The visit is part of a series of meetings with other Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood leaders and key figures in the Yemeni Reform Party (Al-Islah), Abdel-Meguid Al-Zindani and Salman Al-Ouda.

The Administrative Court upheld on Monday the death sentences for six members of Ansar Beit Al-Maqdes (ABM), which were handed down last October by a military court.

A few hours separate Al-Jazeera journalists from hearing their final verdict after more than a year and a half of legal struggle; half of which were spent in prison over terror charges; widely denounced by international media bodies.

Police in Bangladesh have arrested six suspected militants, including the chief of the outlawed Jamaat-ul Mujahideen group, as authorities stiffen a crackdown on hardline Islamists.

Egyptian police have killed two men suspected of involvement in violence against the state, state news agency MENA reported late Monday.

A bomb explosion took place on Tuesday morning in the North Sinai town of Al-Arish with no casualties reported, a North Sinai resident told Daily News Egypt.

The Cairo Criminal Court on Monday postponed to the first of October the trial of former president Mohamed Morsi and 24 others over charges of insulting the judiciary.

The Egyptian Court of Administrative Judiciary has rejected Monday a challenge that demands nullify death sentences, which have been already carried against six people by a military court in May, Youm7 reported.

Ankara is concerned that the success in northern Syria of the Kurdish YPG militia, which has pushed back Islamic State with the help of US-led air strikes, will stoke separatist sentiment among its own Kurds and embolden the PKK.

Somalia's Shebab insurgents killed at least 13 people Sunday in a suicide bomb attack on a hotel in the capital Mogadishu, a security official said Monday, updating an earlier death toll. "The devastation was huge, and so far 13 people, all of them innocent civilians, have been confirmed dead," government security officer Ahmed Ali said. "Some of the wounded died last night, while other bodies were recovered under the wreckage of nearby buildings."

Three villagers were beheaded during a weekend raid in Cameroon by Boko Haram jihadist fighters from neighbouring Nigeria, security forces said Monday.