Kabul / AFP At least 16 people were killed after militants stormed the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, officials said on Thursday, in a nearly 10-hour raid that prompted anguished pleas for help from trapped students. Explosions and gunfire rocked the campus after the attack began Wednesday evening, just weeks after two university professors—an American and an Australian—were kidnapped …

  Berlin / AFP Germany’s military is preparing to pull out from a Turkish airbase as a row between the two NATO partners escalates, Der Spiegel magazine reported on Thursday. Germany in December agreed to send Tornado surveillance jets and tanker aircraft to the Incirlik base in southern Turkey to aid the multinational coalition fighting the extremist IS group and …

  Qayrarah / AFP Iraqi forces backed by coalition air strikes on Thursday pushed the IS group from Qayyarah, a northern town considered strategic for any future offensive against the jihadists’ last stronghold of Mosul. “We control all parts of the town and managed, in very limited time, to root out IS ,” Lieutenant General Riyadh Jalal Tawfik, who commands …