Islamic State Militants

The extremist network has expressed admiration for the shooting - and while not officially claiming responsibility has acknowledged the influence of their ideology on the gunmen

The sleeper cell behind a deadly church bombing near Damascus belonged to the Islamic State group, which had plans to target a Shiite shrine in a similar attack, Syria's Interior Ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday. Sunday's attack on the Mar Elias church killed at least 25 people. The attack was the first of its kind in Syria in years, and comes as Damascus under de facto Islamist rule is trying to win the support of the country's minorities. Noureddine Al-Baba told journalists a second attacker was caught Monday on his way to target a Shiite shrine in the Sayyida Zeinab suburb in Damascus, where many sites of the Islamic sect are located. Al-Baba said security forces also thwarted a third operation, where an attacker on a motorbike was going to target a crowded gathering in the capital. He did not give further details. We raided IS hideouts, seizing weapons and explosive caches, said Al-Baba, who said security forces were able to reach the sleeper cell's leader after interrogat

The FBI now says that the pickup truck driver responsible for a deadly rampage in New Orleans acted alone. Officials said on Wednesday that they were seeking additional potential suspects in an attack being investigated as an act of terrorism. But Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division, said on Thursday that the evidence now shows that Shamsud-Din Jabbar was solely responsible for the attack and professed allegiance to the Islamic State. New Orleans pressed ahead with plans to reopen the city's famed Bourbon Street on Thursday as investigators kept digging into the background of the US Army veteran who drove a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year's revellers, killing 15 people. The FBI said it was investigating the attack, which occurred when 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar steered around a police blockade, as a terrorist act. Investigators believe the driver was inspired by the Islamic State group. Authorities recovered a black flag of

Eight people from Tajikistan with suspected ties to the Islamic State group have been arrested in the United States in recent days, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. The arrests took place in New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles and the individuals, who entered the US through the southern border, are being held on immigration violations, said the people, who were not authorised to discuss the ongoing investigation by name and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The nature of their suspected connections to the IS was not immediately clear, but the individuals were being tracked by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, or JTTF. They were in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which made the arrests while working with the JTTF, pending proceedings to remove them from the country. The individuals from Tajikistan entered the country last spring and passed through the US government's screening process without turning up ...

The Islamic State extremist group poses a rising threat amid political instability in West Africa and the Sahel and remains intent on carrying out attacks abroad, the U.N. counter-terrorism chief said Thursday. Vladimir Voronkov reiterated U.N. findings that IS continues to pose a significant threat to international peace and security, especially in conflict zones, despite significant progress by U.N. member nations in countering the threat. The group has also increased operations in its former strongholds in Iraq and Syria as well as Southeast Asia, Voronkov said. Voronkov told the U.N. Security Council that in West Africa and the Sahel, a broad region cutting across the continent, the situation has deteriorated and is becoming more complex, as local ethnic and regional disputes cross with the agenda and operations of the extremist group, which is also known by its Arabic name Daesh, and its affiliates. Daesh affiliates continued to operate with increasingly more autonomy from the

Islamic State, an extremist Sunni group, is ideologically opposed to Shia-dominated Iran, regarding Shias as infidels

The case against the eight accused was initially registered at Police Station ATS, Lucknow and later, the probe was taken over by the NIA

Over the past months, Iraqi security forces had conducted operations against extremist militants to crack down on their intensified activities

A soldier and two Islamic State (IS) militants were killed in clashes north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, the Iraqi military said

Eleven Islamic State (IS) militants were killed on Saturday in airstrikes in western and eastern Iraq, the Iraqi military said

A total of five Islamic State (IS) militants, including two local leaders, were killed in an operation to track down IS militants in northern Iraq, the Iraqi military said

Iraqi forces killed six Islamic State (IS) militants in separate military operations in the north and west of the country, the military said

Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi was killed as he exploded a bomb at his compound in the country's northwestern Idlib province

Islamic State is far from the formidable force it once was, but militant cells often operating independently have survived across a swathe of northern Iraq and northeastern Syria

The attack late Saturday on the checkpoint in Satiha village in Kirkuk province also wounded five police. The security official said the clashes with the militants lasted for nearly an hour.

ISIS has intensified its focus on the activities of its branches and networks

IS said in a post on its online Telegram channel on Thursday that its fighters were able to plant the explosive device at the Non-Muslims Cemetery in the kingdom's coastal city of Jiddah

Armar, a native of Bhatkal in Karnataka, is said to have recruited at least 30 men for IS in India

Strike was targeted at a meeting of the IS leaders