Smelling of fresh paint, the two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch where a gunman killed 50 worshippers last week

2004-11: In the chaos following the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, an al-Qaeda offshoot sets up there, changing its name in 2006 to Islamic State in Iraq.

US-backed fighters say they have captured Islamic State's last shred of ground in eastern Syria - but while its era of territorial rule may be over for now, there is near universal agreement that IS remains a threat.

Almost 100 people, mostly women and children, died Thursday as a ferry packed with families celebrating Kurdish New Year sank in a swollen river in the former jihadist stronghold of Mosul, in Iraq's worst accident in years.

Kurdish-led forces yesterday combed the banks of the Euphrates in eastern Syria to smoke out the last jihadists preventing the much-delayed announcement of the demise of the Islamic State's "caliphate".

Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in clashes near a flashpoint religious site in the occupied West Bank overnight yesterday, the Palestinian health ministry said.

Top US diplomat Mike Pompeo yesterday sought to bolster a united front against Iran during a Middle East tour that will include talks

Their battle against the last jihadists holding out in the besieged Syrian village of Baghouz hasn't quite ended but Kurdish-led fighters have already started celebrating.

At least two Bangladeshi expatriates working in Saudi Arabia were killed while another was injured in a road accident on the Riyadh-Dammam Highway.

At least 50 members of the Afghan security forces have surrendered to the Taliban in a fight for control of Afghanistan's western

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said yesterday over 60,000 people, mostly civilians, had flooded out of Islamic State's last enclave in eastern Syria since a final assault to capture it began over two months ago.

Israel said yesterday its aircraft had struck dozens of Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip overnight in response to rockets from the Palestinian enclave, including rare fire toward its economic capital Tel Aviv.

The United States no longer refers to the Golan Heights as an "Israeli-occupied" territory in its latest annual human rights report, published on Wednesday, though the State Department insists the wording change doesn't mean a policy change.

US-backed forces said yesterday the Islamic State group was living its "final moments" after thunderous shelling on its last scrap of land in eastern Syria prompted 3,000 jihadists to surrender.

Kurdish-led forces yesterday said more people were surrendering from the Islamic State group's last scrap of territory in Syria, after overnight air raids and shelling ravaged jihadist outposts.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has demanded Pakistan act "decisively against anti-Iranian terrorists" in a phone call with the country's premier, Tehran said, a month after a bloody attack on security forces.

Thirty-six nations condemned Saudi Arabia on Thursday over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a rare censure of the oil-rich kingdom at the UN Human Rights Council.

Defeated but unrepentant, some jihadists limping out of their besieged final bastion in eastern Syria still praise the Islamic State and promise bloody vengeance against its enemies.

A Palestinian teenager was killed by Israeli fire during renewed clashes along the Gaza border overnight yesterday, the enclave's health

A mortar attack on a large ceremony attended by Afghanistan's chief executive and other leading government figures in Kabul yesterday killed three people and injured 22 others, officials said.