President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is expected to announce Egypt's backing for the Lebanese army during a meeting with Prime Minister Tammam Salam in Cairo next week, Arab diplomats said Thursday.

The diplomats, who were not identified, told al-Joumhouria newspaper that Sisi could announce his country's readiness to assist the military institution through a grant, which would set the stage for a visit of a Lebanese army delegation to Cairo.

Russia and Egypt are holding their first ever joint naval exercises, the defense ministry said Wednesday, in a bid to strengthen ties amid Moscow's confrontation with the West.

"The active phase of joint Russian-Egyptian naval exercises called The Bridge of Friendship-2015 started today in the Mediterranean Sea near the shores of Egypt," the Russian defense ministry said in a statement.

Police said they foiled an attempted suicide bombing Wednesday on one of Egypt's most popular ancient attractions in Luxor, in a rare assault on the country's vital tourism sector.

Egypt has been shaken by a tide of attacks claimed by jihadists since the army toppled the democratically elected government two years ago. 

The West has an interest in the "fragmentation" of the Islamic world and is partly to blame for the rise of Islamic State, one of the world's top Muslim clerics told AFP in an interview on Tuesday.

Speaking on the sidelines of a seminar in Florence, Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar in Cairo, strongly criticised Western powers and particularly the United States.

Egypt lashed out Tuesday at a Human Rights Watch report condemning "flagrant human rights abuses" during the first year of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's rule, dismissing it as "politicized".

The watchdog released its report on the first anniversary of the inauguration of Sisi, who was sworn in on June 8, 2014, after having ousted his Islamist predecessor Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected president, in July 2013.

An Egyptian court Tuesday upheld death sentences against 11 football fans over a February 2012 riot in the eastern city of Port Said that cost the lives of 74 people.

The riot, the country's deadliest sports-related unrest, broke out when fans of home team Al-Masry and Cairo's Al-Ahly clashed after a premier league match between the two clubs.

The Egyptian branch of the Islamic State group released a video Monday showing the jihadists killing a man in North Sinai after accusing him of being a police "spy."

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis -- which has pledged allegiance to IS and renamed itself "Sinai Province" -- has carried out a spate of deadly attacks on the peninsula since last year.

Syrian opposition representatives met in Cairo Monday in a bid to forge a new, broader alliance against President Bashar Assad's regime and agree on a roadmap for ending the conflict.

The new grouping would offer an alternative to the National Coalition, the exiled opposition bloc that is widely recognized and supported by Arab and Western governments, organizers said.

Algeria, Egypt and Italy on Sunday called for a political solution in Libya, on the eve of U.N.-mediated talks aimed at forming a unity government in the war-torn country.

Libya plunged into chaos after a 2011 NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed veteran strongman Moammar Gadhafi, with heavily armed former rebels carving out their own fiefdoms across the country.

An Egyptian court sentenced 52 supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi to up to 10 years in jail Thursday over a protest in January 2014, a judiciary official said.

The verdict is the latest in a series of harsh sentences handed down to Morsi supporters who have been targeted in a relentless crackdown since the army ousted him in July, 2013.