At least five people were killed on Saturday and dozens injured when two trains collided south of the Egyptian capital, a security source said.

One of the trains was heading for Cairo from Fayyoum and the other was traveling in the opposite direction. They collided between the villages of Sila and Nassiriya.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is due in Egypt on November 17 for talks on boosting ties between the two Muslim countries, foreign ministry spokesman Amr Roshdi said on Saturday.

He said details of the trip were agreed during talks in Ankara on Friday between Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr and his Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoglu.

Several hundred Salafists demonstrated in Cairo on Friday to demand that sharia, or Islamic law, be the basis for legislation in a new constitution being drafted for Egypt.

Nearly 2,000 radical Islamists gathered in Tahrir Square for the second consecutive Friday to vent their demands, an Agence France Presse correspondent reported.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr praised on Wednesday efforts exerted by President Michel Suleiman to maintain stability in Lebanon.

Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5) reported that the two officials discussed during a meeting at the Baabda Palace the bilateral ties and the regional situation.

An Egyptian policeman was shot and critically wounded in Sinai on Tuesday when gunmen opened fire on a police patrol, days after three policemen were killed in an ambush in the restive peninsula.

The officer was shot in the neck in the northern city of El-Arish, the site of the deadly attack on Saturday.

Egypt's new Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros II has said he would reject a constitution still in the making if it imposed a religious state in the Muslim-majority country, newspapers reported on Tuesday.

Tawadros, whose minority community has become increasingly fearful of the rise of Islamists to power in Egypt, also urged Christians not to leave the country stressing that they have co-existed with Muslims for centuries.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr arrived in Beirut on Tuesday for a two-day visit to meet with senior Lebanese officials and stress his country's support to the resumption of the national dialogue among the political foes.

He kicked off his visit by meeting with Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea in Maarab and later Speaker Nabih Berri and Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met in Cairo on Sunday with Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi for talks about the Syrian conflict, agreeing on the need to move forward but finding little common ground.

"We discussed the situation in Syria... reviewing what has been done so far and if there is any way to move forward. And let us be clear, there wasn't any agreement on anything," al-Arabi told a joint news conference.

Egypt's interior minister on Sunday sacked the head of security in North Sinai, a day after an attack that killed three policemen in the restive peninsula sparked protests by their colleagues.

Interior Minister Ahmed Gamal ordered that the head of security, Ahmed Bakr, be replaced by his deputy in response to complaints from police over lawlessness in the peninsula, security officials said.

Lebanon's top leaders congratulated on Sunday Egypt's new Coptic Pope Bishop Tawadros, hoping his selection would lead to dialogue between the Egyptian people and unity among Muslims and Christians in the region.

In a statement he issued after the church chose the new pope in an elaborate ceremony, Speaker Nabih Berri said the selection of Tawadros' name from a chalice by a blindfolded boy “was a lesson in democracy that should be adopted in the Arab world at all levels.”