ARSAL, Lebanon / ap In a remote corner of Lebanon near the border with Syria, Lebanese troops have been quietly making steady progress, fighting against extremists holed up in the rugged mountains. It is a fight less visible than the US-led war against the IS group in Syria, Iraq and Libya. But hardly a day passes without army artillery …

  Beirut, Lebanon / AFP Air strikes on the IS group’s de facto Syrian capital Raqa killed 25 civilians, six of them children, a monitoring group said on Wednesday. “Dozens more were wounded, some of them critically,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding it was not immediately able to determine who carried out the Tuesday raids. The Syrian …

  United Nations / AFP The UN Security Council on Tuesday urged the international community to live up to its “moral and political obligation” to aid Iraqi civilians who fled an operation against the IS group in Fallujah. Council members “welcomed the successful counteroffensive” launched by Iraqi forces and coalition partners on May 22-23 to retake Fallujah, a key extremist …

  Seoul, South Korea / AFP Nuclear-armed North Korea conducted two back-to-back tests of a powerful new medium-range missile on Wednesday, with both achieving a significant increase in flight distance over previous failed launches, South Korea’s Defence Ministry said. Both tests were believed to be of a much-hyped, intermediate-range Musudan missile — theoretically capable of reaching US bases as far away …

  New Delhi / AFP India successfully launched on Wednesday a rocket carrying a record 20 satellites as its famously frugal space agency looks to grab a larger slice of the lucrative commercial space market. The rocket blasted off from the southern spaceport of Sriharikota carrying satellites from the US, Germany, Canada and Indonesia, the most in a single Indian mission. …

  Diffa, Niger / AFP Outside the Diffa grand mosque in Niger’s southeast, two soldiers stand at the ready, rifles pointed at the wave of worshippers walking towards them. Unbidden, the men raise their “boubous”, the traditional wide-sleeved robes worn across West Africa. They need to show they’re not hiding explosives under the tunics. This is one of the ways …

  United Nations / AFP The United Nations urged South Sudan’s government to hold accountable the perpetrators of February’s violent attacks on a camp sheltering nearly 50,000 displaced civilians in the northeastern oil hub Malakal. A May inquiry found that assailants, some wearing South Sudan army (SPLA) uniforms, entered the camp on February 17 and 18 through a breached fence and …

  London / AFP Rival sides threw their efforts into the final day of campaigning on Wednesday, on the eve of Britain’s vote on EU membership that will shape the future of Europe. Prime Minister David Cameron conducted a spate of last-minute interviews to get his pro-EU message to voters before polls open at 0600 GMT on Thursday. “Nobody knows …

  New Delhi / AFP At least 67 people have been killed by lightning in India over the past two days, disaster management officials said on Wednesday, as the annual monsoon rains sweep the country. Lightning strikes are relatively common in India during the June-October monsoon, which hit the southern coast earlier this month, but this week’s toll is particularly …

  Los Angeles / AFP A US court convicted two men of attempting to help the IS group in Iraq and Syria, with one attempting to travel to the Middle East. A jury found Nader Elhuzayel and Muhanad Badawi, both 25, guilty of conspiring to provide material support to the extremist group, the US Justice Department said in a statement. …