12 sentenced to death in Egypt over IS link

An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced 12 extremists to death over setting up a terrorist cell linked with the Islamic State (IS) militant group, a media report said.

The Zagazig Criminal Court in Sharqiya province convicted the defendants for forming the terrorist cell attempting to overthrow the current regime, and targeting military and policemen, besides recruiting youth and moving them to Syria and Iraq to receive training in guerrilla wars and use of arms inside cities, Xinhua reported.

Egypt has been facing a rising wave of terrorism since the ouster of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in July 2013 by military following mass protests against his one-year in office.

Since then, anti-government attacks killed hundreds of police and army men while crackdown on Morsi's loyalists left over 1,000 killed and thousands more arrested.

The Muslim Brotherhood was thereafter blacklisted as "a terrorist group".