The head of the Arab League urged its members on Sunday to confront Islamic State extremists "militarily and politically", issuing an apparent call to arms as President Barack Obama prepares to go to lawmakers and the American public with his own plan to stop the militants.

The last Christians have fled the northern Iraqi town of Bartella. Six babies were born during the difficult journey east to Erbil, a city under Kurdish control and still known to be safe for Christians. The church group was led to safety by Father Yacoub Saad Shamas who explained what it felt like to leave their homes.

The head of Egypt’s Al Azhar, Sunni Islam’s highest seat of learning, said on Monday that jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) were “criminals” serving a “Zionist” plot to “destroy the Arab world.” “These criminals have been able to transmit to the world a tarnished and alarming image of Muslims,” Sheikh Ahmed Al Tayyeb said.

US Secretary of State John Kerry will meet Arab foreign ministers in Saudi Arabia Wednesday as he bids for a broad coalition against the Islamic State, a senior Egyptian foreign ministry official said.

Ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi may face death sentence for leaking national security documents to Qatar, state media reported.

A Cairo court postponed on Monday the trial of Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie and 17 other group members over charges of inciting violence to September 20.

An Egyptian military court on Monday sentenced five leaders of the ultra-conservative Islamist group Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya to a year in jail over allegations of attempting to illegally flee to Sudan, a lawyer for the group's political party has said.

A police officer was killed and 10 conscripts injured after due to a bomb allegedly planted by militants exploded next to their armored vehicle in South Arish road, Youm7 reported.

Egypt’s Ministry of Endowments has stressed the importance to find “solutions” to confront the rise of Sunni extremist group the Islamic State (ISIS).

Ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi may face death sentence for leaking national security documents to Qatar, state media reported.

Twenty-five detained students of Al-Azhar University announced Sunday they would start an open-ended hunger strike to demand their release, according to Freedom for the Brave, an initiative that provides support for detainees.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has threatened to break off a unity agreement with Hamas if the Islamist movement does not allow the government to operate properly in the Gaza Strip.

Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo are set to issue a resolution on Sunday backing Iraqi and U.S. efforts to confront Islamic State insurgents who have overrun large areas of Iraq and Syria and declared a cross-border caliphate, diplomats said.

The body of a police conscript who died at a training camp in North Sinai shows signs of bruising, the forensic medical authority revealed on Saturday.

Pope Tawadros II (see image), who became the 118th leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church on November 19, 2012, arrived in Toronto this evening to officially begin his month-long Canadian visit. His first trip to Canada will include the consecration of the first Coptic cathedral in North America, Markham’s St. Mark's Coptic Orthodox Church, visits to other parishes across Canada, meetings with religious leaders, and the delivery of a lecture at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

Security forces have arrested a journalist who they say filmed a video of an alleged anti-police armed group, state news agency MENA reported on Wednesday.

Romanian Christians are familiar with persecution in their home country but they didn’t expect to encounter it in America.

In a video posted online on Wednesday, the Sinai-based militant group Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis claimed responsibility for killing 11 security personnel, including a police officer, in an attack in North Sinai the day before.

US President Barack Obama called for an international front against jihadists in Iraq and Syria after they beheaded a second American reporter, as Britain and France weighed military action. "We know that if we are joined by the international community, we can continue to shrink ISIL's sphere of influence, its effectiveness, its financing, its military capabilities," said Obama, referring to the Islamic State (IS).

Alexandria Court of Urgent Matters on Wednesday postponed to the beginning of October a lawsuit filed by the Popular Front Against the Brotherhoodization of Egypt calling for the dissolution of all religious parties.

The Cairo University Brotherhood students ended their demonstration on Wednesday. They were protesting the expulsion of their colleagues and the banning of political organizations on campus.