Beirut / AFP IS group extremists killed at least 26 members of Syrian government forces on Thursday in an assault on regime positions in the central province of Homs, a monitor said. IS launched simultaneous attacks near the Mahr and Shaar oil and gas fields and elsewhere in the desert in eastern Homs where clashes were continuing, the Syrian Observatory …

  Dhaka / AFP Bangladesh’s elite security force on Thursday arrested five suspected members of a banned extremist outfit who it said were planning to break their leaders out of jail. The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) said the men were members of the banned Harkatul Jihad al Islami (HuJI), whose leader Mufti Abdul Hannan this week had his death sentence upheld …

  Meureudu / AFP Aftershocks rattled the survivors of a devastating Indonesian earthquake that killed more than 100 people, as officials urgently appealed on Thursday for medicine and doctors to treat the hundreds injured. The shallow 6.5-magnitude quake levelled hundreds of homes, mosques and businesses across Aceh province, one of the areas worst affected by the devastating 2004 tsunami. Search and …