Dhaka / AFP US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday that there was evidence to link the extremists behind a recent series of deadly attacks in Bangladesh to the IS group. “We talked very openly about this and we made it very clear … that there is evidence that ISIL in Iraq and Syria has contacts with …

  Kabul / AFP Afghanistan launched a polio vaccination campaign on Monday aimed at reaching children in areas previously controlled by IS group militants, officials said. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only two countries in the world where polio remains endemic—a fact blamed on opposition to immunisation by extremist groups, who claim the vaccines are a conspiracy to sterilise Muslims …

  Karbala /AFP Attackers armed with suicide vests, rifles and grenades killed 18 people in the Iraqi oasis town of Ain Al Tamer, many of them guests at a wedding party, local officials said on Monday. “They were carrying Kalashnikovs, hand grenades. One of them blew himself up and the others were killed by the security forces,” said the head …