The death sentences for two leading Islamist figures were downgraded to life imprisonment following a retrial by Cairo's criminal court on Thursday.

A Jordanian court acquitted radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada on Wednesday of charges of providing spiritual and material support for a plot to attack tourists during New Year celebrations in 2000, a judicial source said.

The United States and Arab allies launched strikes from the air and sea against Islamic State militants in Syria on Tuesday, opening a new front in the battle against the brutal jihadist group.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron said Egypt is key in the fight against extremism in the region, while also urging President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to respect human rights.

Jihadists linked to the Islamic State group claimed to have beheaded a Frenchman abducted in Algeria in a video posted online Wednesday, after Paris rejected their demand to halt strikes in Iraq.

Air strikes overnight hit Islamic State-held territory in Syria near the Turkish border, near an area that tens of thousands of Kurds have fled as the militant group advanced, an organisation that tracks the Syrian war said on Wednesday.

The United States and Arab allies launched strikes from the air and sea against Islamic State militants in Syria on Tuesday, opening a new front in the battle against the brutal jihadist group.

The latest airstrikes targeting Islamic State fighters in Syria could have an indirect positive effect on Egypt, said Nabil Fouad, strategic sciences professor at the Nasser Military Academy, explaining that it would keep the fighters busy and incapable of expanding their attacks outside Syria and Iraq.

A government department donated £18,000 to a charity coalition with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group whose activities Britain has vowed to curtail following concerns over their extremist links in the Middle East, it has been claimed.

Egypt says the war on the Islamic State (ISIS) must be extended to include the Muslim Brotherhood in the region, a diplomatic source told Al-Mesryoon website.

On 9/11 on the UA Mall, I encountered one of the ugliest displays of “Islamophobia” I’ve ever seen. Brother Dean, campus’ resident sensationalist, was wearing a fake beard and a shirt with “ISIS” written on it while he held a sign equating Islam with hate and terrorism. He was loudly shouting offensive slogans and confronting a woman in a headscarf, whom I overheard say she felt unsafe, when I first saw him. Her concern was not helped by the fact that the other side of his sign said, “You deserve to be gang-raped.”

Egypt's top prosecutor referred on Monday Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie and 104 others to trial for murder, among other charges.

Islamic State urged insurgents in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Monday to press ahead with attacks against Egyptian security forces and beheadings, a call likely to deepen concern over ties between the militant groups.

Five men believed to have Islamist affiliations were handed death sentences Saturday after being convicted of multiple terror-related charges in what is known as the "October cell case."

Cairo Criminal Court will resume on Sunday trial of deposed President Mohamed Morsy and 130 others affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah and Hamas over escaping Wadi al-natrun prison during 2011 revolution.

Cairo Criminal Court will resume, on Thursday the trial of former MP and head of the Legislative Committee of the dissolved People's Assembly Mahmoud al-Khodairy, Muslim Brotherhood and FJP leader Mohamed al-Beltagy, pro-Muslim Brotherhood preacher Safwat Hegazy and other leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood on charges of detaining and torturing a lawyer with electric shocks inside the headquarters of a tourist company in Tahrir Square during the 25 January revolution.

Egypt has moved to curb one of the last bastions of Muslim Brotherhood dissent with sweeping new rules to curtail violent protest at Al Azhar University, among the world's most venerable centres of Islamic learning.

An Egyptian criminal court sentenced on Thursday 34 "Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood" in absentia to 17 years in prison on charges of violating the protest law and disrupting the constitutional referendum.

The militant Islamic State group has released a video warning the United States that fighters await it in Iraq if President Barack Obama sends troops there, as he and his top general said may happen.