Philippine militants that want to ally with Islamic State group militants (IS) have beheaded two local hostages, police said Wednesday.

The number of Islamic State militants group (IS) in Syria and Iraq is lower than at any time in the past two years, Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday.

The United States and its allies conducted nine strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria on Tuesday, the coalition leading the operations said.

Mental illness, abandonment and impotence will soon be considered valid grounds for divorce in the Evangelist Church in Egypt; the church will hold an expanded meeting Wednesday to discuss a proposal to loosen rules to dissolve marriages, Youm7 reported.

Jordan has raided and shut down the headquarters of the original Muslim Brotherhood group in its capital. Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood split in March 2015 over whether to remain a branch of the mother movement in Egypt. The group that cut ties is now licensed, while the “old” Brotherhood is outlawed, despite severing ties with the Cairo movement earlier this year.

An explosion in the southern Lebanon city of Sidon killed an official from the Palestinian Fatah movement on Tuesday, an official from the group said.

As US-led offensives drive back Islamic State in Iraq, concern is growing among US and UN officials that efforts to stabilize liberated areas are lagging, creating conditions that could help the militants endure as an underground network.

The Taliban announced the start of their spring offensive on Tuesday, pledging to launch large-scale offensives against government strongholds backed by suicide and guerrilla attacks to drive Afghanistan's Western-backed government from power.

Belgium has charged a further two men with terrorist offences over alleged links with the rental of a property thought to have been used as a safe house ahead of the Brussels attacks, federal prosecutors said on Tuesday.

The United States and its allies stages 13 strikes on Monday against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in the coalition’s latest daily attack against the militant group, a U.S. military statement said on Tuesday.

At least 12 people were killed and dozens wounded Monday when a suicide bomber attacked a bus carrying Afghan army recruits near the eastern city of Jalalabad, officials said.

Three men attacked a rural police station in southern Russia on Monday including at least one suicide bomber, the Interior Ministry said, saying police in the affected area had been put on a high state of alert.

A campaign to reduce prices for niqabi customers has been launched on social media in reaction to an initiative demanding the ban of the full-face veil in certain public places.

Syria's Al-Qaeda affiliate and allied rebels pushed offensives around northern, central and coastal Syria on Monday, triggering a spike in violence that could threaten a truce ahead of peace talks, a monitoring group said.

The United States and its allies conducted 18 strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria on Sunday, the coalition leading the operations said.

A Syrian journalist who opposed Islamic State (IS) group militants was in intensive care Sunday after being shot in the head by a masked gunman in southern Turkey, reports and activists said.

Pope Tawadros II, the head of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church, has spoken about his meeting on Friday with Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdel Aziz, saying that he valued that the king's support for Egypt and Egyptians.

Lobby group “Ban the Burka” has announced some progress in the achievement of its goals, signing a memorandum with Prime Minister Sherif Ismail concerning the banning of the niqab in state institutions.

At least 24 Islamic State group fighters and eight civilians were killed in air strikes Sunday on Syria's Raqa, the de facto capital of the jihadist movement, a monitor said.

An Iraqi official says displaced families are returning to the western city of Ramadi three months after Iraqi forces backed by U.S.-led airstrikes drove out the Islamic State group.

Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq are netting between US$150 million and $200 million a year from illicit trade in plundered antiquities, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations said in a letter released on Wednesday.