Egyptian Christians have buried their dead a day after suicide bombers from the so-called 'Islamic State' group killed at least 45 people in co-ordinated attacks targeting Palm Sunday services in two cities.

An explosion on a main road in Cairo has killed six police and wounded another three in what appears to be the deadliest attack on security forces in Egypt in several months.

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A disillusioned former member of Islamic State has passed a stolen memory stick of documents identifying 22,000 supporters in over 50 countries to a British journalist, a leak that could help the West target Islamist fighters planning attacks.

An EgyptAir mechanic whose cousin joined Islamic State in Syria is suspected of planting a bomb on a Russian passenger plane that was blown out of Egypt’s skies in late October, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Martin D Stern (Letters, January 6) wrongly suggests that in my letter on January 13 I was trying to imply Israel was ultimately responsible for recent Saudi executions.

Following the execution of 47 men in Saudi Arabia on January 2, the situation in the Middle East is deteriorating. 

A preliminary investigation into the crash of a Russian passenger plane has found no indication yet of any “illegal or terrorist act,” said Egypt’s chief investigator.

Egyptian officials say there is no evidence to prove the Russian jet which crashed in Sinai was brought down by terrorists.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has described as a “stab in the back” the downing of a Russian fighter plane by Turkey.

The US and European allies are combining in a drive to persuade Vladimir Putin to co-operate with them in the struggle against terror group Islamic State in the wake of attacks in Paris and Egypt.

Betty Purcell’s heartfelt advocacy on behalf of the Arab population in the West Bank is clearly genuine, she describes how “as a teenager, I planned to go and work on a kibbutz, believing that Israel was building an equal and fair society.

Egyptian police were questioning employees of Sharm el-Sheikh hotels as they investigated whether a bomb may have been planted in the luggage of unsuspecting holidaymakers who boarded the doomed Metrojet flight.

Airport security around the world will have to be overhauled if it is confirmed the Russian airliner crash in the Sinai was caused by an Islamic State bomb, British foreign secretary Philip Hammond has warned.

Investigators of the Russian plane crash in Egypt are “90% sure” the noise heard in the final second of a cockpit recording was an explosion caused by a bomb, a member of the investigation team told Reuters yesterday.

British and US spies intercepted “chatter” from suspected militants and at least one other government suggesting that a bomb, possibly hidden in luggage in the hold, downed a Russian airliner on Saturday, killing all 224 people on board, Western intelligence sources said.

Irish investors among team examining crash site in Egypt.

The Russian plane that crashed in Egypt was not struck from the outside and the pilot did not make a distress call before it disappeared from radar, a source in the committee analysing the flight recorders said yesterday.

Egyptian security forces killed 12 Mexicans and Egyptians and injured 10 “by accident”, mistaking a tourist convoy for militants they were chasing in the country’s western desert, the ministry of interior said.

A car bomb in a Cairo suburb has wounded at least six police officers and badly damaged a state security building.

Dozens of Islamic militants unleashed a wave of simultaneous attacks, including suicide car bombs, on Egyptian army checkpoints in the restive northern Sinai Peninsula yesterday, killing at least 53 soldiers.

An Egyptian court has confirmed a death sentence handed to ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi for a mass prison break during the 2011 uprising that brought him to power.

Gunmen on a speeding motorcycle opened fire outside the plateau of the famed Giza Pyramids on the outskirts of Cairo yesterday, killing two tourist police, Egypt’s state news agency reported.

David Morrison and his Ireland Palestine Alliance have to make up their minds (Irish Examiner, Letters, March 23).

The British Embassy in Cairo has been forced to close for security reasons, the UK ambassador to Egypt has said.

In her column (Opinion, July 24) Victoria White has cobbled a ragbag of factoids together in a disjointed and illogical proposal that, “we have a duty to stand with the Palestinians”.

Ireland’s “victory” of ensuring every country had its own commissioner could be scuppered in November when the new body is put together. Instead there could be super-commissioners, and not-so-super-commissioners clustered around them.

Air pollution at dangerous levels

Egypt’s army says it is crushing Islamist militants in the Sinai Peninsula, but in the region’s villages and towns a victory for the state feels a long way off.

A bombing that killed three South Koreans and an Egyptian driver on the Sinai Peninsula targeted a bus filled with Korean Christians who had saved for years to visit sites mentioned in the Bible on their church’s 60th anniversary, officials said today.

Three South Korean tourists have been killed after a suspected car bomb went off near a border crossing between Egypt and Israel in the Sinai Peninsula, security officials say.

Egypt will hold a presidential vote before parliamentary polls, president Adly Mansour said yesterday, in a change to a political roadmap that could pave the way for the swift election of army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Riot police have clashed with supporters of Egypt’s former Islamist president across the country, leaving two dead as the Muslim Brotherhood renewed calls to protest ahead of a key referendum later this month.

A powerful explosion has ripped through a police headquarters in an Egyptian Nile Delta city killing 13 people, wounding more than 100 and leaving victims buried under rubble in the deadliest bombing yet in a months-long wave of violence blamed on Islamic militants.

A suicide bomber has rammed his explosive-laden car into one of two buses carrying off-duty soldiers in Egypt’s turbulent region of northern Sinai, killing 10 and wounding 35.