Beit al-Maqdis

Egypt's affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) threatened on August 5 to execute a Croatian kidnapped in Cairo last month within 48 hours if Muslim women jailed in Egypt are not freed.

Egypt has imposed restrictions on female citizens traveling to Turkey, police said on May 17, months after introducing similar measures for men to stop them joining the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadist group.

Women aged 18 to 40 are now required to obtain security clearance before going to Turkey, a senior police officer told AFP, without specifying why.

Egyptian authorities hanged six men convicted of killing soldiers May 17, police said, ignoring appeals to spare them amid allegations two of them had been in custody at the time of their alleged crimes.

A group of 14 Palestinian factions said April 9 they backed a joint military operation with the Syrian government to expel Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadists from the Yarmouk camp in southern Damascus.
      

Jihadists in Egypt's Sinai killed 15 soldiers and two civilians in attacks on checkpoints on April 2, security officials said, the deadliest in months despite a massive army campaign against the insurgents.
 

A suicide bomber rammed a vehicle packed with explosives into a police base in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on March 9, killing a civilian and wounding 24 policemen, security and health officials said.
      
The attack took place in the North Sinai provincial capital of El-Arish, minutes after a nighttime curfew was lifted at 6:00 am (0400 GMT).
      

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimated the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant’s (ISIL) combatant manpower to be between 20,000 to 31,500 in Iraq and Syria combined, and that was back in September, before the organization had attracted new recruits from all over the world.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has released a defiant audio recording it said was of chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, after air strikes on jihadist leaders in Iraq sparked rumours he had been wounded or killed.