Baghdad / AFP United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Baghdad on Saturday for talks with senior officials on ways of assisting war-ravaged Iraq, the world body said. Ban, who had last visited the Iraqi capital in March 2015, was travelling with World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim and Islamic Development Bank head Ahmad Al Madani. They went straight ...

Iskandariyah / AFP The village of Al Asriya, south of Baghdad, prepared on Saturday to bury its sons, killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up after a football tournament. The attacker, who himself looks like a teenager on a photo distributed by the IS group that claimed the attack, cut through the crowd when trophies were being presented. “There ...

Palmyra / AFP Syrian troops backed by Russian ground and air forces on Saturday pushed deeper into the IS group stronghold of Palmyra, as Washington considered boosting its anti-extremist fight in neighbouring Iraq. IS, behind a string of attacks in the West including this week’s Brussels bombings, is under growing pressure from Syrian and Iraqi military offensives to retake two ...