Islamic State Militants

How Islamic State militants recruit and coerce children

A child between the ages of 12 and 14 wasreportedly the culprit behind a suicide attack, blowing up the wedding of Besna and Nurettin Akdogan in Gaziantep, Turkey, and killing 54 people on August 20.

Egypt buys 2 warships from France, 2nd big military purchase

The assault ships, which can each carry 16 helicopter gunships, 700 troops and up to 50 armored vehicles, were originally intended for Russia. France continued building to Russia's specifications — including stenciling Cyrillic writing throughout the vessels — until the deal finally fell apart because of the Ukraine crisis. It was originally supposed to be the biggest arms sale ever by a NATO country to Russia.

General: Only handful of Syrian fighters remain in battle

Senators dismissed the training program as a "total failure" and demanded a change of strategy.

Gen. Lloyd Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the U.S. is looking at better ways to deploy the Syrian forces, but he agreed that the U.S. will not reach its goal of training 5,000 in the near term.

Norwegian believed held by IS militants had Mideast interest

     

Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad's last communicated via his Facebook page on Jan. 24, announcing he had "finally made it" to Syria and was on his way to Hama. His prolific posting subsequently stopped.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Boerge Brende confirmed Thursday that the 48-year-old had been held since January, and that a picture shown in the latest issue of the militants' online magazine Dabiq, showing Grimsgaard-Ofstad in a yellow jumpsuit was believed to be recent.

Officials: Iraqi defense minister unharmed in sniper attack

A statement Monday says Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi was heading back to Baghdad after a field visit to troops fighting Islamic State militants when shots were fired on his convoy near the contested town of Beiji. The statement says one of his guards was wounded.

Iraq is going through its worst crisis since the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. troops. The Islamic State group controls large swaths of the country's north and west after capturing Iraq's second-largest city of Mosul and the majority of Anbar province last year.

Iraq: Suicide attacks, clashes kill 17 troops near Fallujah

Four suicide attackers drove explosives-laden military vehicles into government forces' barricades outside Fallujah, west of Baghdad, the officials, a police officer and an army officer, said. Clashes broke out afterward. The officials said 15 other troops were wounded.

Both officers spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information.

Iraq ambush kills 14 soldiers in restive Anbar province

The officials, a military officer and a police officer, say numerous roadside bombs targeted a military convoy Wednesday morning as it was traveling on a highway outside the Islamic State-held city of Ramadi. They say that the attack in Khabaz area, about 170 kilometers (105 miles) west of Ramadi, also wounded 10 soldiers.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information.

Jordan tries to stem IS-style extremism in schools, mosques

They portray "holy war" as a religious obligation if Islamic lands are attacked and suggest it is justified to kill captured enemies.

Christians, the country's largest minority, are largely absent from the texts.

The government says it's tackling the contradiction between official anti-extremist policy and what is taught in schools and mosques by rewriting school books and retraining thousands of teachers and preachers.

Clashes in Iraq's Anbar kill at least 17 government troops

A police officer, an army officer and a Sunni tribal fighter said the deadliest clashes took place east of Islamic State-held Ramadi, where six soldiers, four Sunni tribal fighters and two police officers were killed. Nine other troops were wounded, they said.

They say another five soldiers were killed and nine wounded when militants attacked troops near the Habbaniyah military base, where dozens of American advisers are stationed.

Turkish president confirms US use of Incirlik base

Erdogan did not elaborate on details of the agreement, which U.S. and Turkish officials had said Erdogan had made in a telephone conversation earlier this week with President Barak Obama.

Confirmation came hours after Turkish warplanes struck Islamic State group targets across the border in Syria on Friday.