Ten Egyptians, including a journalist working for a Muslim Brotherhood newspaper, were each sentenced on Monday to a year in jail for protesting against a constitutional referendum, judicial sources said.

Egypt adopted in January a new constitution after the previous one, approved during the presidency of Mohammed Morsi, was suspended when he was ousted last July.

A leftist leader who ran in the 2012 presidential election on Sunday urged Egypt's military to stay out of politics, criticizing an expected leadership bid by the army chief.

Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has emerged as the most popular political figure in Egypt after having ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, has made no secret of his intention to stand in a presidential election scheduled for spring, although he has yet to announce his candidacy officially.

Prominent activist Alaa Abdel Fattah is to stand trial on March 23 for allegedly participating in a violent protest, state media reported Saturday, amid concerns Egypt's military-installed regime is increasingly stifling dissent.

The announcement came as a court handed two-year prison sentences to 68 supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and opposition activists on the same charge, a judicial source said.

Egypt's deadliest militant group said one of its founders, who led a deadly 2011 attack in Israel, has been accidentally killed by a bomb.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which has spearheaded a low-level insurgency against Egyptian soldiers and police, said Tawfiq Mohamed Fareej was killed last week when a car accident set off a bomb he was carrying.

Gunmen killed six soldiers at a Cairo checkpoint Saturday in a brazen morning attack the military blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood movement of deposed President Mohammed Morsi.

The attack came two days after gunmen killed a soldier in Cairo, as militants once based in the Sinai Peninsula increasingly target the capital in a campaign that has killed more than 200 security men since the army overthrew Morsi last July.

Interim president Adly Mansour said Egypt will have an "elected" leader in two and a half months, in an interview published Friday by the state-owned Al-Ahram daily.

The presidential election is seen as a major milestone in a transitional roadmap outlined by the military-installed authorities for a return to democratic rule after the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July.

Egypt on Thursday summoned the ambassadors of several European countries after they signed a joint declaration of concern over Cairo's sweeping crackdown on dissent.

The military-installed authorities have launched a deadly crackdown on ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood movement since the army toppled him in July.

The candidate who lost Egypt's 2012 presidential election reiterated his support Thursday for the army chief as president but also slammed the military for initially backing his candidacy openly.

Ahmed Shafiq -- fallen strongman Hosni Mubarak's last premier -- endorsed Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, whose popularity surged afer he ousted the Islamist Mohammed Morsi last July following mass street protests against his turbulent year-long rule.

Gaza's Islamic Jihad announced Thursday that an Egyptian-brokered truce had been restored following a brief but intense confrontation a day earlier when Israeli warplanes pounded the Strip after heavy cross-border rocket fire.

But the truce was being tested after the Israeli military reported than a rocket had been fired from Gaza early in the evening, bringing to four the total over the course of the day.

Egypt's military said Wednesday it has destroyed 1,370 smuggling tunnels under its border with the Gaza Strip, as Cairo's ties remain sour with the Hamas movement that rules the Palestinian enclave.

Ties took a turn for the worse after the military's July ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, who belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, with which Hamas is affiliated.