A century after her forebears fled massacres in Turkey for Armenia, Alla has gone the other way, hoping to win Turkish citizenship after leaving her impoverished homeland.

Hundreds of Coptic Christians flocked to the churches of New Valley governorate on Sunday to celebrate Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week, which will culminate in a week’s time with Easter Sunday.

Clashes between Kurdish and Shi’ite Turkmen paramilitary forces broke out late on Saturday in northern Iraq, killing at least eight people and cutting a strategic road between Baghdad and the oil city of Kirkuk, security and medical sources said.

An Iranian minister said on Saturday that Islamic State has been hatching "plots and conspiracies" against Iran from its de facto capital Raqqa in Syria and has made several attempts to send "terrorist teams" into Iran.

Clashes between Kurdish and Shi’ite Turkmen paramilitary forces broke out late on Saturday in northern Iraq, killing at least two fighters and cutting a strategic road between Baghdad and the oil city of Kirkuk, security sources said.

A century after her forebears fled massacres in Turkey for Armenia, Alla has gone the other way, hoping to win Turkish citizenship after leaving her impoverished homeland.

The U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State staged 24 strikes on Wednesday in Iraq and Syria in its latest daily operation against the militant group, it said in a statement released on Thursday.

At least 40 pro-Syrian government fighters surrendered to Kurdish forces in the city of Qamishli in mostly Kurdish-controlled Hasaka province on Thursday, a Reuters witness said.

Suspected Boko Haram gunmen on horseback killed at least 11 people in northeast Nigeria this week, two civilian vigilantes assisting the military told AFP on Thursday.

Islamic State militants seized Syrian government-controlled territory in the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zor on Tuesday, a war monitor and a news agency affiliated with the ultra-hardline Islamist group said.

The lawyer for the victims of the 2011 Two Saints Church bombing said on Thursday he is preparing a file on the case and will submit it to the presidency soon.

A huge fire broke out early on Wednesday at Mar Girgis Catholic Church in Luxor. Fire fighters headed to the church, but the blaze had already gutted the whole building. The reason behind the fire have not been identified yet, according to church sources, but investigation authorities are looking for the cause.

The residents of North Sinai's Arish not only have to put up with the struggle of the "war against terrorism," but they also have to deal with the unavailability of clean drinking water, which has been gone for up to a week.

Three police conscripts were killed and 13 others injured Tuesday after unidentified assailants hit a convoy with a rocket-propelled grenade in North Sinai, the Interior Ministry announced.

Thai police cannot find 15 suspects in connection with a bomb at a shrine in Bangkok last year that killed 20 people, an officer said on Wednesday, as two ethnic Uighur Muslims from China accused of involvement appeared in a military court.

Islamic State militants seized Syrian government-controlled territory in the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zor on Tuesday, a war monitor and a news agency affiliated with the ultra-hardline Islamist group said.

A total of 26 tourist companies announced they are organizing pilgrimage trips for Coptic Christians from Egypt to Jerusalem despite of the ban imposed by the Orthodox Church since 1979.

There are signs that more Islamic State inspired militants have been sent to Belgium and Europe, Belgian authorities said on Tuesday, maintaining the country’s threat status at the second-highest level.

German police arrested five people near Dresden on Tuesday who they suspected of forming a far-right militant group and preparing attacks on asylum seekers using explosives, the public prosecutor’s office said.

Taliban militants attacked an office of Afghanistan’s main security agency with a suicide car bomb and gunfire on Tuesday, killing several people and wounding over 200, in their first assault on the capital since declaring a spring offensive.

At least three policemen were killed and eight others injured in an attack on their vehicle in the city of Sheikh Zuwaid, North Sinai, officials said Tuesday.