A policeman was killed and four others were wounded after the Islamic State terror group tried to attack the St. Catherine’s monastery in Sinai, Egypt this week.
A Christian Aid group estimates that the cost to rebuild and restore the thousands of homes and churches that have been destroyed by the Islamic State and the fighting in Iraq is $200 million.
Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al Abadi has said that Iraq’s military will defeat Islamic State forces “within weeks,” but that it will take longer to truly eradicate the jihadists’ presence in the Middle East.
Some 400,000 Iraqis are facing food shortages while they are trapped in the Islamic State-controlled part of west Mosul amidst fighting, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said this week.