Iraqi authorities said Sunday the remains of 123 people killed by Islamic State (IS) group militants had been removed from a mass grave in the Nineveh governorate in order to start the process of identifying them. In one of its worst crimes in Iraq, IS carried out a massacre at Badush prison in June 2014 after it captured a third of Iraq in a lightning offensive that year. IS militants […]
A series of suicide bombings and attacks in southwest Syria have killed dozens of people, with state media blaming the Islamic State of the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) for the violence. A suicide bomber detonated his explosives at a busy vegetable market in the city of Sweida, some 120km south from the capital Damascus, early on Wednesday, as ISIL fighters mounted attacks on several villages to the northeast, […]
The world is failing Yazidi women forced into sex slavery by Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, with 3,000 still unaccounted for, according to the head of a charity dedicated to helping survivors recover from their horrific experiences. Murad Ismael said many Yazidi women and girls had been brainwashed or killed in captivity, while those who had managed to escape after years of enslavement and rape were left struggling […]
Dozens of bodies, including those of militants and civilians, have been found in a mass grave in the former Islamic State (IS) group stronghold of Raqqa in Syria, a local official said on Saturday. The former de facto "capital" of the group in northern Syria, Raqqa saw the militants ousted by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces last October. Almost 50 bodies had already been recovered from the mass grave, which […]
French cement group Lafarge paid close to $15.2m to armed organisations, including the Islamic State (IS) group, to keep operating in Syria from 2011 to 2015, human rights lawyers said on Tuesday. The lawyers were speaking at a news conference on the course of a preliminary inquiry launched in June by French prosecutors into Lafarge's operations on suspicion of "financing of a terrorist enterprise". The lawyers for rights group Sherpa […]
Iraqi forces launched an offensive on Saturday to capture Rawa, the last remaining town under Islamic-State control, leaving the group’s self-proclaimed caliphate on the verge of complete defeat. The capture of the town would mark the end of Islamic State’s era of territorial rule over a so-called caliphate that it proclaimed in 2014 across vast swathes of Iraq and Syria. Syria’s army declared victory over the militants on Thursday, after […]
Spain mounted a sweeping anti-terrorism operation on Friday after a van diver ploughed into crowds in Barcelona, killing 13 people before and injuring scores fleeing, in what police suspect was one of multiple planned attacks. Islamic State claimed the attack on Las Ramblas on Thursday evening, which was packed with tourists. The death toll could rise, with more than 100 injured, authorities said. As security forces hunted for the van's […]
The White House said on Monday it appears the Syrian government is preparing for another chemical weapons attack and it warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad he and his military would "pay a heavy price" if it conducts such an attack. The White House statement said preparations by Syria were similar to those undertaken before an April 4 chemical attack that killed dozens of civilians and prompted President Donald Trump to […]
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said that the "liberation" of the city of Mosul from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL - also known as ISIS) will be announced in a few days. "It's a matter of a few days and we will announce the total liberation of Mosul," Abadi told reporters on Thursday, according to Baghdad-based Sumaria TV. The announcement came as Iraqi forces were continuing […]
VOC became the first Muslim radio station in South Africa when a special events license was granted to the station in Ramadan/January 1995. Subsequent temporary broadcast licenses were granted, permitting the station to broadcast for 24 hours.
