| Islamic State claims deadly Jordan border attack on Tuesday: statement Posted: 26 Jun 2016 03:22 PM PDT  Islamic State claimed a suicide bomb attack launched from inside Syria on Tuesday that killed seven Jordanian border guards, its news agency Amaq said on Sunday. The attack was carried out by "a fighter of Islamic State," Amaq said in a statement. The suicide bomber on Tuesday drove a car at speed across the border from Syria and rammed it into a military post.
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| IS claims deadly suicide attack on Jordanian soldiers Posted: 26 Jun 2016 03:16 PM PDT  The Islamic State group on Sunday claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing this week that killed seven Jordanian soldiers on the Syrian border, the jihadist-linked news agency Amaq said in a statement on its website. Tuesday's blast, which also left 13 soldiers wounded, struck near an area of no man's land where thousands of Syrian refugees are stranded and where the frontiers of Iraq, Syria and Jordan meet. Quoting an unnamed source, the Amaq statement said the attack against "the Jordanian-American base at Rukban in Jordan was carried out by an Islamic State fighter".
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| Iraqi commander declares defeat of Islamic State in Falluja Posted: 26 Jun 2016 12:22 PM PDT  By Stephen Kalin and Ahmed Rasheed FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi forces on Sunday recaptured the last district of Falluja held by Islamic State militants and the commander of the operation declared the battle over following a month of fighting. Iraqi troops reached the city center, an hour's drive west of Baghdad, last week but militants had holed up in some parts, including Golan district which the military retook on Sunday. The assault is part of a wider offensive against Islamic State, which seized swathes of territory in 2014 but is now being driven back by an array of forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition.
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| Iraq takes full control of Fallujah from IS Posted: 26 Jun 2016 11:34 AM PDT  Iraqi forces took the Islamic State group's last positions in the city of Fallujah Sunday, establishing full control over one of the jihadists' most emblematic bastions after a month-long operation. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had already declared victory on June 17 after IS defences collapsed, with Iraqi forces facing only limited resistance in subsequent clearing operations. The offensive saw tens of thousands of civilians risk death to flee their homes, leaving Iraq to grapple with a humanitarian crisis as its forces prepare to attack the country's last remaining major IS hub of Mosul.
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| After Fallujah, what's next in the battle against the IS group? Posted: 26 Jun 2016 11:08 AM PDT  After Iraqi forces took full control of the Islamic State group's bastion of Fallujah, what's next in the battles against the jihadists, not just in Iraq but in Syria and further afield? The loss of Fallujah is the latest in a series of defeats shrinking the "caliphate" that the group proclaimed two years ago over the vast areas it conquered in Iraq and Syria in 2014. What is the next big battle in Iraq?
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| Fallujah fully liberated from IS group, Iraqi commander says Posted: 26 Jun 2016 11:06 AM PDT  BAGHDAD (AP) — Five weeks after a military operation began, a senior Iraqi commander declared Sunday that the city of Fallujah was "fully liberated" from the Islamic State group, giving a major boost to the country's security and political leadership in its fight against the extremists.
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| Turkish police fire tear gas in Istanbul to disperse Gay Pride activists Posted: 26 Jun 2016 09:58 AM PDT  By Nick Tattersall ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish police detained 19 people and fired tear gas in central Istanbul on Sunday to disperse dozens of activists attempting to gather to mark the annual Gay Pride week after authorities banned their march. A German lawmaker and a member of the European Parliament were also briefly detained while police chased activists into side streets and blocked them from gathering and reading out a statement, saying it was banned. Organizers called off the annual Gay Pride march, carried out largely peacefully since 2003, after authorities did not allow the event to go ahead but deployed hundreds of riot police near the main Taksim square.
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| Iraq PM visits Fallujah, urges Iraqis to celebrate victory Posted: 26 Jun 2016 08:11 AM PDT  Baghdad (AFP) - Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi urged all Iraqis to celebrate the recapture of Fallujah Sunday by the security forces and vowed the national flag would be raised in Mosul soon.
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| Iran says five rebels killed in Kurdish region Posted: 26 Jun 2016 08:11 AM PDT  Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said it killed five armed rebels in recent clashes along its border with Iraqi Kurdistan, state media reported. A statement from the Guards, published late Saturday by official news agency IRNA, said "five armed rebels linked to counter-revolutionary groups" were killed the night before. The commander the Revolutionary Guards' ground forces, General Mohammad Pakpour, threatened to target Kurds across the border in northern Iraq.
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| IRAQ FALLUJAH 2 Posted: 26 Jun 2016 07:34 AM PDT UPDATE ADDS MOSUL, IRAQ: map locates Fallujah, Iraq; 1c x 3 inches; 46.5 mm x 76 mm; |
| IS video shows killing of 5 captured Syrian media activists Posted: 26 Jun 2016 07:20 AM PDT BEIRUT (AP) — A graphic video emerged Sunday showing the killing of five Syrian media activists captured by the Islamic State group last year. |
| AP PHOTOS: Iraqi special forces share treasured possessions Posted: 26 Jun 2016 05:10 AM PDT  FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) — Sgt. Ahmed Abdelaziz, with Iraq's special forces, has been almost continually deployed fighting the Islamic State group ever since the militants overran nearly a third of Iraq in the summer of 2014. Now he's on the front lines of Fallujah, a city declared "fully liberated" on Sunday by the commander leading the fight against IS. Abdelaziz has with him what he always brings into battle: a photo of his brother.
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| Islamic State militants launch new attacks in eastern Afghanistan Posted: 26 Jun 2016 02:38 AM PDT By Rafiq Sherzad and Mirwais Harooni KABUL (Reuters) - Heavy fighting between Islamic State militants and government security forces has claimed dozens of lives in eastern Afghanistan, officials said on Sunday. In recent months insurgents claiming allegiance to Islamic State had largely appeared to be bottled up in a mountainous area along the border with Pakistan under threat of U.S. air strikes. At least a dozen Afghan security forces and civilians had been killed, with another 18 wounded, Nangarhar province governor Saleem Khan Kunduzi said in a statement. |
| Kuwait mosque hit by IS suicide bomb reopens as fears remain Posted: 25 Jun 2016 11:09 PM PDT  KUWAIT CITY (AP) — The wood paneling bearing Quranic verses gleams inside the Imam Sadiq Mosque and the carpeting is soft underfoot for worshippers who come to pray in what is one of Kuwait's oldest Shiite mosques — and the site of the country's worst militant attack in modern history.
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