Berlin / AFP Germany’s top diplomat will host talks on Wednesday with his French counterpart, the UN’s Syria envoy and Syria’s main opposition leader, as concerns grow over the war-torn country’s faltering truce. Discussions will focus on “how the conditions for a continuation of the peace talks in Geneva can be met, as well as how a reduction of …

  ISTANBUL / AP The Turkish military says its warplanes have pounded Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq, killing 18 militants. The airstrikes late Monday targeted Qandil, the mountainous stronghold of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or PKK. Ankara and its Western allies designate the PKK as a terrorist organization. The organization has fought a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state that …

  Baghdad / AFP The IS group broke through Kurdish defences in northern Iraq on Tuesday and killed an American service member of the US-led coalition fighting the extremists, officials said. The service member, whom the Pentagon confirmed was American, was at least the third killed by enemy fire in Iraq since IS overran swathes of the country in 2014. …