Two suicide bombings that killed about 25 people in Baghdad yesterday were claimed by Islamic State, whose stronghold of Falluja near the capital is surrounded by Iraqi forces which are now advancing on the city.

The United Nations was Tuesday forced to defend its decision to remove the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen from a blacklist of child rights violators after rights groups expressed dismay.

"This is how racism falls". These are the words of a Saudi man who attended the wedding of his relative, a Saudi bride who married a non-Saudi groom.

Syrian regime troops supported by Russia and US-backed fighters pressed twin offensives against the Islamic State group yesterday as pressure built on the jihadists' northern strongholds in the war-torn country.

Iraqi civilians fleeing the city of Fallujah have been shot at by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters who are holed up in the besieged city, an international aid group told Al Jazeera.

Saudi Arabia rejects a United Nations report that criticized the military coalition it is leading in Yemen, saying it is based primarily on information supplied by its adversaries.

Humanitarian aid drops to besieged areas in Syria are not imminent and need regime approval, the United Nations said yesterday,

Saudi Arabia, which oversees the pilgrimage to Makkah, accused Iran of depriving its citizens of the religious duty after talks on

Militants from the so-called Islamic State have launch a dawn counter-attack as Iraqi government troops push into the city of Falluja.

The Iraqi army stormed to the southern edge of Falluja under US air support yesterday and captured a police station inside the city

Elite Iraqi troops were yesterday poised to assault one of the Islamic State group's most emblematic bastions, Fallujah, as the jihadists counterattacked in both Iraq and neighbouring Syria.

More than 50,000 people were trapped in Fallujah as an offensive to push the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (IS) group from the

Islamic State fighters capture territory from Syrian rebels near the Turkish border and inch closer to a town on a supply route for foreign-backed insurgents fighting the jihadists, a monitoring group said.

With Saudi Arabia's government announcing reforms aimed at moving the kingdom away from its dependence on oil, another source of income looks set to become a major contributor to the economy - religious tourism.

Satellite imagery appears to show extensive damage to an air base in Syria used by Russian forces following an attack by fighters from the Islamic State group, US intelligence company Stratfor said yesterday.

New satellite imagery appears to reveal extensive damage to a strategically significant airbase in central Syria used by Russian forces after an attack by so-called Islamic State (IS).

Islamic State (IS) is losing territory, its finances are being drained and the number of foreign fighters recruited has reportedly down to a trickle, dropped by as much as 90 percent from a high of 2,000 a month in the past year.

Twin bombings claimed by the Islamic State group hit Yemeni forces in Aden yesterday, killing at least 41 people in the latest of a spate of attacks in the southern city.

Egypt has sent a robot submarine to join the hunt for an EgyptAir plane which crashed in some of the deepest waters of the Mediterranean Sea with 66 people on board, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said yesterday.

One of the people on board the EgyptAir flight almost did not make the trip after losing his passport last week, his friends tell media in France.