Bashir / AFP Iraqi Kurdish and Turkmen Shiite forces have recaptured the town of Bashir from the IS extremist group, officials said. Pressure for an operation to retake the town had grown in March after IS launched a chemical attack from Bashir on the nearby town of Taza that killed at least three children. Kurdish peshmerga forces and Turkmen …

  Ankara / AFP Turkish police on Sunday detained four suspected IS extremist who were allegedly planning an attack on May Day celebrations in the capital Ankara, the state-run Anatolia news agency said. Initial investigations showed that the four were Syrian citizens who had been in Ankara for some time, the agency added, without giving details on the nature of …

  Istanbul / AFP A car bomb on Sunday hit the Turkish city of Gaziantep, a major refugee hub near the Syrian border, killing at least two policemen and wounding 22 other people, with the country on edge after a succession of militant attacks. In a separate attack in the province of Mardin to the east, three Turkish soldiers died in …