Washington / AP The US-led coalition fighting the IS group in Syria is trying to strangle it by cutting off a key supply route from Turkey. The Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led alliance, has just launched an offensive to capture the strategic northern town of Manbij with the help of coalition air strikes, 18 of them in the past …

  Ahmedabad / AFP An Indian court convicted two dozen Hindus on Thursday over a massacre during religious riots 14 years ago when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was chief minister of Gujarat state. Sixty-nine Muslims were hacked and burnt to death as they sheltered at a residential complex in the city of Ahmedabad, in one of the single worst massacres …

  Mogadishu / AFP An attack on a Mogadishu hotel by extremist gunmen has ended with at least 10 dead, Somalia’s security minister said on Thursday. Somali security forces had been battling the Shabaab fighters holed up inside the building since Wednesday evening when the assault began with a car bomb that tore the front off the six-storey Ambassador Hotel. …