An Alexandria military court issued on Tuesday preliminary death sentences against 36 people convicted of involvement in deadly bombings on two Egyptian churches in Alexandria and Tanta in April 2017. The case involves 48 defendants, 31 of whom are in custody and 17 are fugitives. The court has referred the case to the country s Grand Mufti for his non-binding opinion on the death sentence as per Egyptian law. The verdict is subject to appeal.

An official security source in the Ministry of the Interior denied reports that an extremist had attempted to attack a church in the city of Obour, stressing that the arrested suspect was beggar mot linked any extremist groups. The security services assigned to provide security for the Church of Mar Boullus in Obour, Qaliubiya, reported that ‘Mohamed S. G.’, 21, from Sharqiya governorate tried to enter the church with a black plastic bag containing some clothes.

Four months after Iraqi government troops drove the last remnants of the Islamic State (IS) terror group from the country, the militants are waging a growing campaign of ambushes and hit and run attacks that has rendered that victory nearly futile. Over the past few weeks insurgents have been attacking the Iraqi security forces in areas which the government had taken back from IS, nearly every day, showing a high level of organisation and probably having inside information on the deployment plans of the soldiers.

Upper Egypt s criminal court of Sohag on Wednesday sentenced 35 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood group to life in prison on charges of weapons possession in Sohag. In the same case, the court also convicted 155 others, handing down various sentences ranging between three and 15 years in prison. The sentences can still be appealed.

Over the past three days of Egypt’s presidential elections, many Christians turned out in support for President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, with many in the community endorsing him for a second term in office. While some Egyptians find his win inevitable against his little known rival Moussa Mostafa Moussa, a lot of Christians believe he is the best man to rule Egypt at the moment.

Hundreds of pilgrims filed into Jerusalem s Church of the Holy Sepulchre -- believed to be the site of Jesus s resurrection -- for Easter celebrations on Sunday. Western Christians marked Easter on Sunday, while eastern Orthodox Christians do so on April 8. The eastern Orthodox marked Palm Sunday on April 1 and also held mass at the church in Jerusalem s Old City, with worshippers holding palm fronds as is tradition.

Coptic Egyptians headed on Sunday to churches across Egypt to celebrate Palm Sunday, the seventh Sunday of the Great Lent before Resurrection Sunday. They accompanied their families and friends carrying palm fronds, a symbol of victory and goodness, while children held crosses and other accessories made of fronds. This came as other Christians around the world celebrated Easter. Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II led on Sunday the Palm Sunday mass at the Church of the Virgin Mary and Santa Marina in Egypt s North Coast, with a large attendance of priests and Christians, state-run Middle East News Agency reported. “Pray that God s mercy overwhelms all people,” Pope Tawadros II told worshipers.

Turkish prosecutors ordered the detention of 70 serving army officers over alleged links to the U.S.-based preacher accused of orchestrating an attempted coup in 2016, CNN Turk said on Thursday. Police launched simultaneous operations in 38 provinces across Turkey in a probe led by state prosecutors in the central Turkish province of Konya, the broadcaster said.

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.

The Syrian army is preparing to launch a "huge" operation against the last rebel-held town in eastern Ghouta unless the Jaish al-Islam insurgent group agrees to hand over the area, a pro-Syrian government newspaper reported on Wednesday. Routed by the Russian-backed Syrian army, rebels in other parts of eastern Ghouta are leaving in convoys to insurgent-held areas in the northwest under withdrawal deals that are restoring President Bashar al-Assad s control.

Communities drawn into conflict after Libya s 2011 uprising have no choice but to reconcile if the country is to recover, said the mayor of a town that was left isolated following fighting four years ago. Mustafa al-Baroni, mayor of the western town of Zintan, also warned that politicians from rival bodies which have overrun their terms are scheming to cling to power, blocking progress at a local level. Zintan emerged as an important military power-base in the NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi seven years ago. However, in 2014 its forces lost their footing in the capital Tripoli to rivals from western Libyan towns including Misrata as the conflict escalated.

The Egyptian police said they had killed six Hasm terrorist group members believed to be behind a failed assassination attempt on Alexandria s security chief on Saturday, which left two policemen dead and injured several others. In an official statement, Egypt s interior ministry said the terrorists were killed on Sunday dawn following a shootout in a residential apartment in Beheira governorate, around 89 kilometres from the Mediterranean city which witnessed Saturday s attack.

On 13 November 2015, Paris was shaken by simultaneous terrorist attacks targeting concert-goers at the Bataclan theatre, the crowd outside a football stadium, and diners at a number of nearby restaurants and bars. The ISIS-affiliated attackers, both gunmen and suicide bombers, killed 130 people and injured hundreds more. Less than a year later, a man drove a truck into crowds celebrating Bastille Day in the southern city of Nice, killing 86.

Ninety years ago today, Hassan Al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood group, which went on to become a major player in both Egyptian and regional politics.‎ What follows below is not by any means a complete analysis of the role played by the group over the past nine ‎decades, but rather a collection of articles published during interesting times by both ‎Ahram Weekly and Ahram Online, with the aim of marking the day.

Cairo Criminal Court sentenced nine defendants to life imprisonment (25 years according to the Egyptian penal code) and another 13 defendants to prison for 10 years over charges of establishing an illegal group, including “specific advanced operations committees”. The court verdict was issued by the court s top judge Shaban al-Shami and both judges Mohammed Abdel Sattar and Osama Abdel Zaher.

Syrian regime and allied forces battled to suppress the last pockets of resistance in and around Damascus Tuesday while the beleaguered Kurds in the north braced for further Turkish advances. The simultaneous assaults have sparked one of the worst humanitarian emergencies since the start of the Syrian conflict seven years ago, with aid groups struggling to gain access to the masses of displaced civilians.

Egyptian Armed Forces spokesman Tamer El-Refaie has said in a statement that 36 takfiris were killed and 345 were arrested by army and police forces during the last five days of the counterterrorism Operation Sinai 2018, which started on 9 February in Sinai and other parts of the country. The Arabic word "takfiri" refers to extremist Sunni Muslims who accuse other Muslims and followers of other religions of being infidels, often as a justification for using violence against them.

Member of the Egyptian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee Tarek El Kholy told local media that a recent request by British parliamentarians to visit former President Mohamed Morsi in prison represents an “unacceptable interference in Egypt’s internal affairs”. Morsi has been in custody since he was ousted from power in July 2013 after mass protests led to a military intervention by the Egyptian army.

Thousands of Syrian civilians fled from a rebel pocket in eastern Ghouta on Thursday, crossing by foot to army positions in the first mass exodus from the besieged enclave since Syrian government forces launched an assault to capture it a month ago. Men, women and children staggered under the weight of blankets, bags and suitcases as they walked along a dirt road to army lines on the outskirts of Hammouriyeh town. Some wept.