Egypt, North Africa | featured news

Concerned about the reaction to an anti-Muslim film that was gaining attention online, the U.S. intelligence community sent a cable to the embassy in Cairo, Egypt, warning of the concern, a U.S. official told CNN.

Protests inspired by a video denigrating the Prophet Muhammad entered a fourth straight day in Cairo, and other demonstrations erupted in the much of the Middle East after Friday Prayer.

President Obama spoke with the leaders of Libya and Egypt late Wednesday to discuss security for U.S. personnel in the wake of attacks on diplomatic posts in both countries. In a phone call with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, Obama "underscored the importance of Egypt following through on its commitment to cooperate with the United States in securing U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel," according to a statement issued by the White House.

A U.S.-military dominated peacekeeping force of 1,650 troops in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula is finding itself caught between restive Bedouin tribesmen and an escalating Egyptian army offensive against insurgents.

They came in Toyota pick-up trucks, dozens of heavily armed masked men, firing machineguns and waving the black flag of al Qaeda as terrified residents and police huddled indoors, and then disappeared again, melting away into the mountains and remote villages of Egypt's Sinai desert.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi on Sunday purged the nation's military leadership in a provocative move to expand his power and push aside generals who epitomized the inner circle of deposed leader Hosni Mubarak.

Egyptian security officials and residents say Egyptian military attack helicopters have fired missiles on suspected Islamic militants in Sinai after an attack on security checkpoints.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, making what is likely to be her last trip to Jerusalem as America’s top diplomat Monday, hailed a “moment of great change” in the Middle East — after her motorcade was pelted with fruit and shoes in Egypt.

Having pressed the new Egyptian president, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday sought to mobilize what influence the United States still has with the army chief whose key role in post-Hosni Mubarak Egypt is splitting the country between those who see the military as a threat to democracy and those clinging to it as a guarantor of stability.

An Egyptian couple has been charged with putting their child at risk and attempted smuggling after security officers at an airport in the United Arab Emirates found their 5-month-old boy hidden in a small handbag.