Saudi King Salman called Sunday for a joint fight against "terrorism" in the Middle East at a time when Riyadh is engaged in several conflicts the region.

Saudi King Salman on Friday announced plans to build a bridge over the Red Sea to Egypt, in a lavish show of support for the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

The 80-year-old monarch is on a rare five-day trip to Egypt, a country that Riyadh views as a cornerstone to its ambitions in the changing region.

Saudi King Salman on Thursday started a five-day visit to Cairo in a show of support for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, with the leaders due to sign a raft of investment deals.

Italy on Tuesday warned Egypt it would not accept a "fabricated" account of the brutal murder of student Giulio Regeni from a delegation of prosecutors and police due in Rome.

As Cairo confirmed the investigative team would fly to the Italian capital on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said there would be immediate consequences if Rome's demands for greater transparency on Regeni's fate were not met.

Defense ministers and officials from 27 Arab and African states on Friday agreed to bolster cooperation on counter-terrorism, in a meeting held at an Egyptian resort town.

The Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD) members agreed on "strengthening cooperation in counter-terrorism," according to the draft resolution read out by Egypt's Defense Minister Sedki Sobhi.

Egyptian security forces Thursday in Cairo shot dead members of a criminal gang that specialized in abducting foreigners by posing as policemen, the interior ministry said.

The only foreigner reported missing in Egypt in recent months was Italian PhD student Giulio Regeni, whose body was found in a ditch on the edge of Cairo, but the ministry in its statement made no mention of his case.

The death toll from an attack on a police checkpoint claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula has risen to 15, the interior ministry said Sunday.

The ministry said a checkpoint near North Sinai's provincial capital of El-Arish was struck by mortar fire late on Saturday, but IS said a suicide bomber blew up a car at the police post, which jihadists then raided.

The brother of Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, under investigation for allegedly calling for the creation of a "terrorist group", was released Thursday from an Egyptian prison, his son and security officials said.

On February 23, a court had ordered the release of Mohamed al-Zawahiri, 64, while the investigation was still underway.

A Cairo court sentenced a man to three years in prison on Saturday for claiming that many women in the conservative country have extramarital affairs, a judicial source said.

Taimour Subki, who runs a Facebook page titled "The Diary of a Crushed Husband," made the claim in a television interview in December, sparking an uproar.

The European Parliament on Thursday called on Egyptian authorities to cooperate in the investigation of the "torture and assassination" of an Italian student in Cairo, saying it came within a context of deaths in custody in Egypt.

Giulio Regeni, a Cambridge University PhD student who was researching Egyptian labor movements, disappeared on January 25 and his badly mutilated body was found a week later.