The British embassy in Cairo suspended public services on Sunday for security reasons, a spokesman for the mission said.

Embassy spokesman David Kinna declined to give details but said the decision was taken in the best interest of the embassy and its staff.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan called on Muslims and Christians to confront a common enemy that is committing atrocities against nations and religious beliefs under the name of Islam.

“Coexistence between Muslims and Christians calls for equality in rights and duties without any discrimination,” Daryan said in his a speech at a two-day international conference in Cairo on fighting extremism.

The head of Al-Azhar, one of the most prestigious centers of Sunni Islam learning, on Wednesday condemned "barbaric crimes" committed by the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

Militants are acting "under the guise of this holy religion and have given themselves the name 'Islamic State' in an attempt to export their false Islam," Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb told the opening session of a two-day international conference in Cairo on fighting extremism.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan traveled to Cairo on Tuesday to attend an international conference on ways to confront terrorism and extremism.

Christian and Muslim representatives from around 130 countries are expected to attend the two-day conference organized by Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar.

Egyptian police fired tear gas Saturday at more than 1,000 protesters in central Cairo who gathered to denounce a court's decision to drop a murder charge against ousted president Hosni Mubarak.

An Agence France-Presse correspondent said police also used water cannons and chased protesters in side streets near Tahrir Square, the hub of the uprising that forced Mubarak to step down in early 2011.

An Egyptian court dismissed Saturday a murder charge against Hosni Mubarak over the deaths of protesters during the 2011 uprising against him, sparking celebrations among supporters but fury from the former president's opponents.

Mubarak, who ruled for three decades until he was driven from office, was also acquitted of a corruption charge but will remain in jail on a three-year sentence in a separate graft case. 

Rescue teams battled to free 15 people trapped in the rubble of a Cairo apartment block early Tuesday after it collapsed during the night, killing at least 10 others.

The Egyptian capital's emergency services chief General Mamduh Abdelkader said that investigators were still probing the cause of the collapse in the poor eastern neighbourhood of Matariya but that illegal construction work was suspected.

Egypt will offer a slew of projects to domestic and foreign investors at a conference in March aimed at kick-starting an economy battered by years of political unrest, the prime minister said Saturday.

Falling tourist revenues and slowing investments have left Egypt's economy in ruins after nearly four years of turmoil that saw two presidents ousted following mass street protests.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi visits France and Italy next week in his first European trip since ousting his Islamist predecessor and overseeing a crackdown that damaged Egypt's international standing.

Sisi, who was then army chief, overthrew president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, prompting a wave of violence between Morsi supporters and security forces that drew rebukes from the U.S. and Europe. 

Militants shot dead five Egyptian conscripts in the Sinai Peninsula on Thursday, as the army searched for eight servicemen missing after an attack on a navy boat in the Mediterranean.

The military carried out air strikes in Sinai, killing three members of the Islamist militant group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, security officials said.