Bartalla / AFP Iraqi special forces threw themselves back into battle on Saturday after a first foray into Mosul was blunted by stiffer than expected resistance from extremists defending the birthplace of their “caliphate”. While the elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) fought the IS group in the streets of Mosul, the army and federal police attacked one of the last sizeable ...

  Kabul /AFP US forces conceded on Saturday that its air strikes “very likely” resulted in civilian casualties in Afghanistan’s volatile Kunduz province, pledging a full investigation into the incident which triggered angry protests. The strikes early Thursday killed at least 30 people, many of them children, after a Taliban assault left two American soldiers and three Afghan special forces ...

  Kano / AFP The Nigerian military said on Saturday it had rescued another of the missing Chibok schoolgirls near the border with Cameroon. “Nigerian army troops rescued another Chibok schoolgirl at Pulka” on Friday evening, army spokesman Sani Usman said, adding he would give details of the rescue operation later. Pulka is outside the town of Gwoza in Borno state ...

  Washington / AFP After Iraqi security forces eventually recapture Mosul, the IS group will be left with only Raqa in neighboring Syria as a bastion, and the extremists’ self-proclaimed “caliphate” will be largely gone. The US-led coalition has been striking IS across both countries for more than two years, and has long held Raqa in its sights —an IS ...

Rome / AFP Two Italians and a Canadian who were kidnapped in the south of conflict-torn Libya in September have been released and flown to Italy, the Italian government announced on Saturday. The Italians, Danilo Calonego, 66, and Bruno Cacace, 56, and Canadian Frank Poccia were freed during the night “due to the effective cooperation with local Libyan authorities,” it ...

  Istanbul/ AFP An Istanbul court on Saturday ordered the imprisonment of nine staff from the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper, in an intensifying crackdown a day after the leaders of the country’s main pro-Kurdish party were also jailed. The arrests added to growing international alarm over the use of a state of emergency implemented in the wake of the failed July 15 ...

  Diyarbakir / AFP A news outlet linked to the IS said its fighters staged a bombing that killed 11 people in southeastern Turkey, according to US-based monitors, after Ankara blamed Kurdish militants for the attack. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Friday’s bombing was carried out by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has regularly targeted security forces since ending ...

  Rissani / AFP On the edge of the southwestern town of Rissani, Abdelrahman Ahmidani sighs as he reflects on the state of the Moroccan oasis, endangered by drought and climate change. “Whoever lives here,” he says, “is condemned to a life of poverty.” In Rissani, the sinuous mountain oasis of Tafilalet gradually disappears into the Sahara desert, after snaking ...

  Hamburg / DPA He’s the last man in Europe to hold down a dream job of journalism: exploring the world’s wildernesses, writing about it and getting paid a generous full-time salary for his pains. Following in the footsteps of Henry Morton Stanley of Africa fame and Tintin the fictitious boy reporter is Lars Abromeit, a German whose unique editorial ...

  AP In another black eye for one of the world’s leading consumer brands, US authorities announced a recall of nearly 3 million Samsung washing machines following several reports of injuries — including a broken jaw — due to “excessive vibration.” The recall comes a month after the South Korean manufacturer recalled millions of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones from ...