Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated government recently allowed members of the Brotherhood and hardline jihadists to join Egypt's military academy for the first time as part of what U.S. officials say is a covert effort to impose Islamist rule in the key Middle East state.
The Obama administration reversed course Thursday and said it no longer would give a prestigious international women's award to an Egyptian political activist after she was accused of posting anti-Semitic and pro-terrorist comments on Twitter.
This week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will be making her swan song appearance on Capitol Hill, providing at last to Senate and House panels her testimony about the Benghazigate scandal.
Tens of thousands of Coptic Christians took to the streets in the Maspero section of Cairo to protest the government's failure to protect them from attacks on their churches. While the protests began peacefully, violence ensued after the Christians were attacked by civilians.
The Egyptian military on Monday assumed joint responsibility with the police for security and protecting state institutions until the results of a Dec. 15 constitutional referendum are announced.
Egypt is bracing for more political tension this week, as supporters and opponents of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi plan for massive demonstrations Tuesday and a weekend deadline looms for a vote on a draft constitution that has split the country into hostile camps.
A fringe group so extreme that it worries even Egypt's Muslim fundamentalists is secretly reviving itself with greater firepower and followers in the country's volatile Sinai Peninsula.
The State Department on Tuesday denied having played an inside role in the appointment of Egypt's new defense minister, a former military intelligence chief who has long-standing ties to the U.S.
Egypt's military vowed on Monday to hunt down those behind the killing of its 16 soldiers at a checkpoint along the Sinai border with Israel. It called the attackers "enemies of the nation" who must be dealt with by force and suggested they were Egyptian Sinai-based militants who received Palestinian support from the Gaza Strip.
