A Cairo criminal court sentenced two men to death on Sunday and handed down prison terms to a number of others over a 2017 terrorist attack on a Coptic church south of Cairo that killed 11 people. The attack took place in Helwan district on the outskirt of Cairo when gunmen opened fire on the Coptic Orthodox church of Mar Mina and a neighbouring Christian-owned shop in December 2017.

Pope Francis on Thursday passed a measure to oblige those who know about sex abuse in the Catholic Church to report it to their superiors, following a global clerical paedophilia scandal. Every diocese in the world will now be obliged to have a system for the reporting of abuse, under a new law published by the Vatican -- but the requirement will not apply to secrets revealed to priests in the confessional.

Egypt s Grand Mufti Shawki Allam has strongly condemned the suicide bombing outside the Data Darbar shrine in Lahore that left at least 10 people dead and 25 injured on Wednesday. Allam stressed that Islamic law categorically rejects all forms of terrorist attacks and intimidation of innocent people.

Clashes between Syrian government forces and militants Monday killed 43 fighters in the country s northwest, where the regime and its Russian ally have stepped up bombardment in the past few days, a monitor said. Militants also fired rockets at a Russian air base in the region but were repelled with the attack causing no casualties or damage, the Russian defence ministry said in a statement.

Palestinian leaders in the Gaza agreed to a ceasefire with Israel on Monday to end a deadly two-day escalation in violence that threatened to widen into a fourth war between them since 2008. An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to comment on the deal, but there appeared to have been no rocket fire or Israeli strikes in the hours after it was due to take effect, an AFP correspondent in Gaza said.

Syrian government forces and their Russian allies pounded the rebel-held northwest with air strikes on Saturday, the fifth day of a campaign that has killed dozens of people and forced thousands to flee, sources in the area and a war monitor said. Artillery that may have been fired by Syrian government forces struck near a Turkish military post in the northwest, a Turkish security official said, signalling the risks of escalation in a part of Syria where Turkish troops have deployed under a deal with Russia.

Renewed talk over whether the White House will designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation raises compelling questions. Why would US President Donald Trump take this step now? How will members of his administration sort out their differences over the move? And if, indeed, the Trump administration goes ahead, what repercussions will there be? On Tuesday The New York Times published a report citing officials familiar with the matter, saying the US administration was working to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group, a move that would mean “wide-ranging economic and travel sanctions” on entities that do business with the group.

Egypt s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi extended the state of emergency nationwide by three months on Thursday upon the approval of House of Representatives following the announcement of the results of the constitutional referendum on Tuesday, the Middle East News Agency (MENA) said. MENA added that the state of emergency will commence April 25 and last until July 24. The emergency law allows the military and security apparatuses to take measures to combat terrorism. Sisi first imposed the state of emergency in the aftermath of twin blasts at two churches in the north of Egypt in April 2017, killing 47 people and leaving 120 wounded.

The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka said Monday that the government should crack down on Islamic extremists with more vigor “as if on war footing” in the aftermath of the Easter bombings. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, said the church may not be able to stop people from taking the law into their own hands unless the government conducts a more thorough investigation and does more to prevent further attacks.

Damanhour Criminal Court issued Wednesday death sentences on two defrocked monks on charges of killing the head of their desert monastery last summer. The court issued a preliminary death sentence 23 February and referred the sentences handed down on the two monks, Isaiah El-Maqary and Faltaous El-Makary, to the country s grand mufti for his non-binding opinion, as required by Egyptian law.

Sri Lankan police detained 40 people, including a Syrian national, for questioning about the Easter Sunday attacks on churches and hotels, government and military sources said on Tuesday, as the toll from the coordinated bomb attacks rose to 321. About 500 people were also wounded. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, which officials said were carried out by at least seven suicide bombers on three churches and four hotels.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sunday condemned the terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka. “I extend my sincere condolences to the victims of the terrorist acts in Sri Lanka, which are not aimed at a particular country, but are aimed at all humanity,” Sisi said in a tweet on his official Twitter account. “We all have to stand up to our historic responsibility against these actions, which are stripped of all the meanings of humanity,” he added.

At St. Catherine s Monastery at the foot of Egypt s Mount Sinai, the silence in the library is broken only by low electrical humming, as an early manuscript is bathed in green light. A team from Greece are photographing thousands of fragile manuscripts, including some of the earliest copies of the Christian gospels, using a complex process that includes taking images in red, green and blue light and merging them with computer software to create a single high-quality color picture.

German authorities have arrested a man suspected of joining the Islamic State group in Syria and later helping send another new recruit for IS from Germany to Syria. Federal prosecutors said the 28-year-old German national, identified only as Volkan L. in line with German privacy rules, was arrested in Hamburg on Wednesday. He is suspected of membership in a foreign terrorist organization.

Sudanese protesters have hardened their stand, demanding a transitional military council be scrapped and immediately replaced with civilian rule as Tuesday they refused to end a days-long sit-in outside army headquarters. Organizers fear the army is seeking to hijack the revolution on the streets which saw veteran president Omar al-Bashir, whose three-decade reign was toppled on Thursday by top commanders after four months of nationwide demonstrations.

An air strike killed the deputy leader of the Islamic State group in Somalia s semi-autonomous Puntland region, alongside another militant, a local security official said on Sunday. A witness said a 4x4 vehicle was hit by several missiles 3 km (2 miles) outside the village of Xiriiro in the Qandala hills at 1 p.m. (1000 GMT) on Sunday.

Fighting in Tripoli has killed 121 people and wounded 561 since commander Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive earlier this month to take the Libyan capital, the World Health Organization said Sunday. WHO s Libya account said on Twitter the organisation was sending medical supplies and more staff to Tripoli, while denouncing "repeated attacks on health care workers, vehicles" during fighting which began on April 4.

Egypt s Ministry of the Interior said in a statement on Thursday that police forces have killed six terrorists from the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group Hasm in Qalioubiya governorate, north of Cairo. The terrorists were killed in a shootout with security forces as police raided a building on a farm in Qalioubiya. The ministry said the raid was carried out based on intelligence received by the National Security Agency that the terrorists where planning attacks upon calls from the media platforms of the terrorist-designated Muslim Brotherhood organisation, which aim to weaken stabilty and security in the country.

German police on Wednesday raided offices belonging to Islamic organisations suspected of financing the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which is on the European Union s terrorism blacklist, the interior ministry said. The ministry said the main targets of the raids were WorldWide Resistance-Help and Ansaar International which are believed to have collected funds for Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, under the guise of humanitarian aid.

Casualties from the battle for Tripoli mounted on Tuesday as a group loyal to Islamic State killed three people in Libya s remote centre showing how militants may exploit renewed chaos. The United Nations health body said local facilities had reported 47 people killed and 181 wounded in recent days as eastern forces seek to take Libya s coastal capital from an internationally-recognised government.