CONFLICT PICTURES

Iraqi forces are facing increasingly stiff resistance from Islamic State militants, who are using suicide car bombs and snipers to defend their last major stronghold in Iraq.

A strategically positioned, well hidden, sniper can pin down the advancing Iraqi forces for days.

Photographs show the isolated state's leader looking through binoculars and smiling as the four missiles were launched into the sea towards Japan.

Miliants barricaded both ends of the tunnel, ripped up the tracks and built an assault course inside, on which to train their recruits.

Iraqi forces have faced their heaviest clashes in their battle to reclaim western Mosul from Isis.

This was the second time the ancient Syrian city, a Unesco heritage site, had been recaptured from the militants in the course of Syria's six-year war.

Over 10,000 civilians have fled Isis-held districts since government forces breached the city's southern defences on 23 February.

Documents, found by Reuters, include some of the first first-hand accounts from Isis suicide bombers to be made public, offering an insight into the mindset of young recruits.

South African police fired tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets to break up rival marches by hundreds of protesters in Pretoria.

The US-backed government forces hope to use the airport as a launchpad for their campaign to expel the jihadists from Mosul.

Theo is becoming a symbol — a young, black man working as an educator in a poor neighbourhood northeast of Paris who stood up against police violence.

Syrian Democratic Force fighters now control most of the villages and towns north of Raqqa.

Retired policeman Arturo Lascanas said he was one of the ringleaders of the "death squad" that began operating when Rodrigo Duterte became mayor of the city in 1988.

Federal police and elite interior ministry units known as Rapid Response are leading the charge toward the airport, just south of the city.

A three-day mourning against the terrorist act on the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar will be observed across Sindh.

House was struck is said to belong to Mohammad al-Nakaya, a tribal chief allied with Yemen's Houthi movement.

Protesters in the 18th District in northern Paris set piles of rubbish on fire in the streets while riot police threw tear gas canisters, which were thrown back at them.

Four French police officers accused of using excessive force including raping male suspect with baton.

Its closure would have resulted in over 200,000 people having to return to war-torn Somalia.

US soldiers have begun relocating throughout the region to train with European allies in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania.

Isis militants are now surrounded by the army from the south and Turkish-backed rebels from the north.