Talks for the safe exit of civilians trapped in Syria s Raqa were underway Wednesday, as US-backed forces prepare a final push to recapture the city from the Islamic State (IS) militant group. The Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, have taken around 90 percent of the city from IS since they broke into the city in June. The US-backed militia has surrounded remaining IS fighters in just a handful of positions, but thousands of civilians are still in the city, some of them being used as human shields by IS.

A Cairo criminal court has sentenced eight men to a death for acts of violence related to the storming of Helwan Police Station on 14 August 2013. In Tuesday s sentencing, another 50 defendants were handed life sentences, seven given 10 years in prison and three defendants handed five years, all in the same case.

Two staff members were killed and several students were wounded in Kenya when gunmen fired on vehicles carrying students to the Technical University of Mombasa s campus in coastal Kwale county on Tuesday, a police official and a witness said. The identity of the gunmen was unclear.

Traditionally, permanently tattooing the body has long been considered a sin in Islam because it involves “mutilating” the body, changing Allah’s creation, inflicting unnecessary pain and introducing the possibility of infection, according to scholars who had outlined possible reasons as to why the act is considered a sin. A new fatwa by Egypt’s former Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa challenges this traditional view, after he stated that inking is permissible for girls, but a sin for boys.

An Egyptian juvenile misdeaneamor court has acquitted 4 Al-Azhar University students on charges of illegally gathering and rioting in front of the university during demonstrations against the overthrow of former president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. The defendants were also accused by prosecutors of of vandalizing public property and assault on police officers tasked with securing the universitys perimeter.

A final assault on Islamic State group s last line of defence in its former Syrian capital Raqqa should begin on Sunday night, a field commander for the U.S.-backed forces operating there said. The loss of Islamic State group s remaining streets and buildings in Raqqa following its defeat in Iraq s Mosul this year and its retreat from swathes of territory in both countries, would mark a major milestone in the battle to destroy the jihadist group.

Giza Criminal Court has referred the death sentences of 13 Agnad Masr militants to the Grand Mufti for approval following their conviction on terrorism-related charges, including killing policemen. The court issued the order on Sunday, setting a date of 7 December for handing down the final verdicts in the case. Referral to the Grand Mufti is a necessary procedure before issuing a death sentence, according to Egyptian law, though the religious opinion of the Mufti is non-binding.

Turkish archaeologists believe they may have discovered the remains of St. Nicholas — from whom the legend of Santa Claus emerged — beneath a church at his birthplace in southern Turkey, an official said Thursday. St. Nicholas was born and served as a bishop of what is now the Turkish Mediterranean town of Demre, near Antalya, in the 4th century. He was buried in the area formerly known as Myra, but his bones were believed to have been stolen and taken to the southern Italian town of Bari.

President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi asserted once more Egypt s support to the unity of the Palestinian people as the government of national unity convened in Gaza for the first time since 2014. Praising the Palestinian reconciliation that Egypt sponsored, the president said Tuesday that “history will hold accountable those who waste opportunities to achieve peace.” He added that there is a real chance to implement peace in the region and that there must be cooperation to ensure “Palestine s seriousness towards it.” The message follows a previous urge to Palestinians to unite and co-exist with Israel, which the Egyptian president had conveyed during his speech before the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 72) in New York in September.

Egyptian intelligence chief and presidential special envoy Khaled Fawzy has returned back to Cairo, following a visit to Gaza and Ramallah on Tuesday to oversee the implementation of the national reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah, which came with Cairo s collaboration. Before concluding his visit, Fawzy invited Hamas and Fatah leaders to meet in Cairo next week to discuss further moves in reconciliation, which is set to include another comprehensive meeting for all Palestinian factions to activate a reconciliation agreement reached in Cairo in 2015.

Iraqi forces pushed into the Islamic State group bastion of Hawija on Wednesday, stepping up their assault against one the jihadists last enclaves in the country, the operation s commander said. "With God s help, the army, the federal police and the rapid response force began a major operation on Wednesday to liberate the centre of Hawija and the neighbouring town of Riyadh," Lieutenant General Abdel Amir Yarallah said in a statement.

Police killed three alleged members of the local militant Hasm Movement group, the Ministry of Interior said Monday. This came amid a gunfire exchange between the suspects and police forces chasing them, the ministry explained. The statement comes one day after the group published its own statement on Twitter, claiming to have targeted the Myanmar embassy in Cairo s Zamalek district. The group stated that it detonated a planted an explosive device near the embassy, saying this should be a warning to those persecuting the Rohingya.

A US-led coalition air strike killed at least 18 civilians on Tuesday in the Islamic State (IS) militant group s former stronghold of Raqa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said. "International coalition planes targeted water wells where a group of civilians were gathered in the north of Raqa city, killing at least 18 civilians," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Islamic State militants set fire to three oil wells near Hawija, west of the oil city of Kirkuk, one of two areas of Iraq still under their control, military and oil officials said on Monday. Iraqi security forces were using bulldozers to control the fires started by the militants in the early hours of Saturday to slow the advance of U.S.-backed Iraqi forces and Shi ite militia groups towards Hawija town, military officials said.

Syria s war killed at least 3,000 people including 955 civilians in September, the deadliest month of the conflict this year, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said on Sunday. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed and millions displaced since the war erupted in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests. It has since spiralled into a complex conflict involving world powers, with Russia-backed regime forces and a US-supported alliance separately battling the Islamic State militants group in the country.

Egypt s Administrative Prosecution ordered on Sunday the referral of an imam in the city of Mahalla to urgent trial for his involvement in the marriage of 27 minor girls, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported. In his speech on Saturday during the official ceremony unveiling CAPMAS latest census, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said he wanted to shed light on the practice of marrying off underage girls, in some cases as young as 12, which is illegal under Egyptian law.

The Islamic State group on Sunday seized a town in central Syria known as a symbol of religious coexistence in a surprise attack against regime forces, a monitor said. The militants took control of Al-Qaryatain in the central province of Homs early on Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

Libya’s Public Prosecution announced on Thursday that the perpetrators of the kidnapping and beheading of 21 Copts in February 2015 have been arrested after authorities identified the location of the beheaded Egyptian Copts in Sirte, Libya, al-Wasat news online reported. The Egyptian prosecution had referred 20 people in 2016 to court for forming a terrorist cell affiliated to the Islamic State group in Libya, saying that a number of the defendants had been involved in the beheading of the 21 Egyptians.

The Beni Suef Criminal court issued on Thursday a life imprisonment verdict against the jailed Muslim Brotherhood Supreme guide Mohamed Badie and another three defendants in the case known as the ‘Beni Suef incidents’. According to the state-run newspaper of Al-Ahram, the MB supreme Mohamed Badie and the three other defendants were accused of burning a police station located in the Upper Egypt’s governorate of Beni Suef, in addition to a Nun school in the same governorate.

Egypt s parliamentary human rights committee has praised Saudi King Salman s decree which allows women to drive cars for the first time in the history of the Gulf kingdom. The head of the committee, Alaa Abed, on Wednesday described the decision as a "a step on the right track of equality between men and women, as well as a fundamental human right," state-news agency MENA reported

Saudi King Salman on Tuesday ordered that women be allowed to drive cars, state media said, ending the conservative Islamic kingdom s status as the only country where that is forbidden. The royal decree ordered the formation of a ministerial body to give advice within 30 days and then implement the order by June 2018, according to state news agency SPA.