Islamist Fighter

Israeli forces pounded Rafah and other areas across the Gaza Strip and engaged in close-quarter combat with fighters led by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, residents and Israel's military said.

Palestinian Islamist group Hamas deployed a force of about 1,000 fighters to stage the most devastating attack on Israel in decades, organising them into specialised units, a source close to the group told Reuters.

The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas launched its biggest assault on Israel in years early on Saturday, firing a barrage of rockets from Gaza and sending fighters across the border.

Taliban fighters fired into the air Saturday to disperse a rare women's protest in the Afghan capital, days ahead of the first anniversary of the hardline Islamists' return to power.

Iran on Monday "strongly" condemned the Taliban's military offensive against holdout fighters in Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley, as the Islamist group claimed it had taken control of the area.

At least 17 people were killed in celebratory gunfire in Kabul, news agencies said on Saturday, after Taliban sources said their fighters had seized control of Panjshir, the last province in Afghanistan holding out against the Islamist group.

Taliban co-founder Mullah Baradar will lead a new Afghan government that could be announced soon, sources in the Islamist group said on Friday, as it battled rebel fighters while striving to ward off economic collapse.

The Taliban aim to unveil a new governing framework for Afghanistan in the next few weeks, a spokesman for the Islamist movement said on Saturday, after the insurgents' swift takeover of the South Asian nation.

A few months before his killing rampage, convicted robber and prison inmate Benjamin Herman had a jailhouse conversion of a sort. A white suburban teen and a nominal Catholic when he was first incarcerated, he emerged in late May as an avowed Islamist who would murder three people within hours of gaining freedom on a work-release program.

At least 35 Egyptian police officers have been killed in an ambush by Islamist fighters near the Bahariya oasis in the country's Western Desert, security and medical sources said Saturday, in a rare flare-up outside the Sinai Peninsula.

Hundreds of gunmen attacked troops in a southern Philippine village today in a hit-and-run assault that may have been intended to help Islamist militants engaged in a nearby urban war, authorities said.

Boko Haram has sent a "proof of life" video which shows 15 of the more than 200 girls abducted by Islamist fighters from the northeast Nigerian town of Chibok two years ago, CNN reported on Wednesday.

The US military carried out a drone strike over the weekend targeting a training camp run by Somali Islamist group al Shabaab about 120 miles north of capital Mogadishu over the weekend, killing more than 150 fighters, the Pentagon said on Monday.

Security forces in Burkina Faso retook a hotel in the capital today from al Qaeda fighters who seized it in an assault that killed two dozen people from at least 18 countries and marked a major escalation of Islamist militancy in West Africa.

Security forces battled suspected Islamist fighters who were holding hostages at hotel used by foreigners in Burkina Faso's capital on Friday, gendarmes and witnesses said.

Israeli forces pounded Rafah and other areas across the Gaza Strip and engaged in close-quarter combat with fighters led by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, residents and Israel's military said.

Palestinian Islamist group Hamas deployed a force of about 1,000 fighters to stage the most devastating attack on Israel in decades, organising them into specialised units, a source close to the group told Reuters.

The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas launched its biggest assault on Israel in years early on Saturday, firing a barrage of rockets from Gaza and sending fighters across the border.

Taliban fighters fired into the air Saturday to disperse a rare women's protest in the Afghan capital, days ahead of the first anniversary of the hardline Islamists' return to power.

Iran on Monday "strongly" condemned the Taliban's military offensive against holdout fighters in Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley, as the Islamist group claimed it had taken control of the area.

At least 17 people were killed in celebratory gunfire in Kabul, news agencies said on Saturday, after Taliban sources said their fighters had seized control of Panjshir, the last province in Afghanistan holding out against the Islamist group.

Taliban co-founder Mullah Baradar will lead a new Afghan government that could be announced soon, sources in the Islamist group said on Friday, as it battled rebel fighters while striving to ward off economic collapse.

The Taliban aim to unveil a new governing framework for Afghanistan in the next few weeks, a spokesman for the Islamist movement said on Saturday, after the insurgents' swift takeover of the South Asian nation.

A few months before his killing rampage, convicted robber and prison inmate Benjamin Herman had a jailhouse conversion of a sort. A white suburban teen and a nominal Catholic when he was first incarcerated, he emerged in late May as an avowed Islamist who would murder three people within hours of gaining freedom on a work-release program.

At least 35 Egyptian police officers have been killed in an ambush by Islamist fighters near the Bahariya oasis in the country's Western Desert, security and medical sources said Saturday, in a rare flare-up outside the Sinai Peninsula.

Hundreds of gunmen attacked troops in a southern Philippine village today in a hit-and-run assault that may have been intended to help Islamist militants engaged in a nearby urban war, authorities said.

Boko Haram has sent a "proof of life" video which shows 15 of the more than 200 girls abducted by Islamist fighters from the northeast Nigerian town of Chibok two years ago, CNN reported on Wednesday.

The US military carried out a drone strike over the weekend targeting a training camp run by Somali Islamist group al Shabaab about 120 miles north of capital Mogadishu over the weekend, killing more than 150 fighters, the Pentagon said on Monday.

Security forces in Burkina Faso retook a hotel in the capital today from al Qaeda fighters who seized it in an assault that killed two dozen people from at least 18 countries and marked a major escalation of Islamist militancy in West Africa.

Security forces battled suspected Islamist fighters who were holding hostages at hotel used by foreigners in Burkina Faso's capital on Friday, gendarmes and witnesses said.