Arbil / AFP The nephew of the governor of a key province where Iraqi forces are battling the IS group has been gunned down in the country’s north, officials said on Saturday. The shooting in Iraqi Kurdish regional capital Arbil came just hours after Nowfal Al Aqoub, the governor of Nineveh, made controversial remarks about children being fathered by IS …

  Islamabad / AFP Six crew members of a Pakistani government helicopter which crash-landed in Afghanistan’s volatile east have been released, an official said on Saturday, after they were taken hostage by the Afghan Taliban. The crew “was released in an inter-tribe exchange on the Pakistan-Afghan border (and) arrived in Islamabad today,” foreign ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria said in a statement. …

  Aden / AFP Iran-backed rebels convened Yemen’s parliament on Saturday in defiance of the internationally recognised government, prompting condemnation from President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. The session in rebel-held Sanaa was the first in almost two years, and comes after the Houthis rejected a UN peace plan and appointed a council to run the country. Parliamentary sources said 91 lawmakers in …