A German teenager who had joined the ISIS terrorist group has explained how she managed to travel from Germany to Turkey and then to Syria and Iraq to fight for the terrorist group. There were a lot of stories about Linda Wenzel who was dragged from the rubble in Mosul as Iraqi forces liberated the city in July. She was 16 years old when she joined ISIS, and now for the first time in an interview with the Iraqi magazine Al-Qadha, which belongs to the country’s judiciary, she has recounted her story of joining ISIS.

The flags and pictures on the wall of the Raqqa home serving as a Yazidi women’s unit seem familiar, even though they can’t be. A big red Sinjar Women’s Protection Units (YJS) flag, with its spiky yellow sun on a green background, in the middle. Next to it, a bronze picture frame with photos of martyred friends, and below that, a picture of a male soldier killed fighting. To the left, a poster of jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai on Sunday questioned how ─ under the watch of US intelligence and military ─ the militant Islamic State (IS) group emerged in Afghanistan over the past few years. Karzai, during an interview on RT, also questioned why extremism and violence had increased in Afghanistan when the US had come to the country to bring peace and stability.

U.S.-backed Iraqi forces announced Thursday they have retaken one of the Islamic State's remaining strongholds after about 1,000 militants surrendered amid fresh signs the terror group is collapsing and unable to defend its territory. “They’re giving up,” said Lt. Gen. Paul Funk, who commands the coalition task force fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. “Their leaders are abandoning them.”

A jihadist plot to attack New York City including Times Square and the subway system was foiled with the help of an undercover FBI agent, officials say. One man in the US and two others in Pakistan and the Philippines are under arrest and face charges of plotting the attacks which they hoped to carry out in the name of the Islamic State group. One of the suspects allegedly said he wanted to create "the next 9/11".

The U.S. has engaged its most intense bombing campaign since Vietnam in order to support militia forces in the battle for Raqqa, the Syrian city the Islamic State calls their capital. Capturing the city has been difficult because civilians inside have been trapped by ISIS and used as human shields. John Irvine of Independent Television News reports on how the fight against ISIS is changing Raqqa.

A 29-year-old man in Switzerland recently received an anonymous letter from his “worried” neighbors after he hung a Jack Daniel's flag in front of his apartment. Their problem? They mistook the whiskey brand’s logo for the black and white logo of ISIS, and feared the young man may be a supporter of the Islamic State.

Intensified fighting in Syria in recent weeks has damaged more hospitals, with at least 10 medical facilities hit over the past 10 days and hundreds of thousands of people cut off from health care, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Thursday. According to an ICRC statement, the violence has been the worst the war-torn country has seen since government forces captured rebel-held eastern part of the city of Aleppo last December.

Isis has managed to recapture a town deep inside Syrian-regime controlled territory in a successful counteroffensive as it fights to defend its last strongholds in the country, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said. At least 153 Syrian army soldiers and allied militias such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah have lost their lives in heavy fighting since 28 September which culminated in Isis seizing the town of al-Qaryatayn in Homs province on Monday, the UK-based monitor said.

Thousands of civilians fleeing the Iraqi military’s push to evict Isis from its last major urban stronghold in Iraq now include hundreds of suspected fighters for the extremist group, dirty and dishevelled, who arrive at checkpoints claiming innocence and begging for mercy. While civilians from the stronghold, the city of Hawija, have sought safety in Kirkuk and elsewhere in Iraq’s Kurdish region, this weekend was the first time they came in large numbers with men of fighting age.

Isis has claimed responsibility for the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Police said at least 50 people were killed and 200 wounded when a gunman opened fire on dense crowds at a concert in Las Vegas. Officials have identified the shooter as Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old American who had multiple weapons on the 32nd floor of a nearby hotel, where he is believed to have killed himself.

An Islamic State militant was responsible for a knife attack at a Marseille train station in southern France that killed two women on Sunday, the group's Amaq news agency said.

High-rise buildings surrounded by parks and villas pierce the skyline. Hotels and luxury cars dot the landscape. It would be easy to mistake this place for a neighborhood in uber-rich Dubai, but in fact it is downtown Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. Ahmad, a taxi driver, motions proudly to signs of his city's rapid development. He points out newly-built bridges and luxury housing projects and gestures to the tarmacked roads and wide pavements.

Australians have been left outraged after it was announced 70 children of ISIS fighters could be returning to the country as the terror organisation begins to disintegrate. Justice Minister Michael Keenan told Fairfax the children would be given counselling and welfare, and their transitions would be closely monitored, but for many it was not enough to allay their fears.

The city of Kobani in northern Syria suffered under an Islamic State siege from 2014 until the U.S.-led Coalition decided to back the Syrian Kurds, eventually defeating ISIS after a battle that lasted more than six months. Every family in Kobani has lost someone to ISIS and even now hundreds of civilians remains in the terror group’s hands. They were kidnapped on the roads in Aleppo or Raqqa before 2014 and nobody knows if they are dead or alive.

A girl’s heroic story has won the hearts of the Egyptian people, to the extent that they are demanding the government to protect and care for her. They have also asked that she is provided with a residence and granted a monthly pension. The girl, Mariam Abduljalil al-Asawi, reported members of her family to authorities. She reported her father, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and her mother and brother, who are both ISIS members, she said.

It takes more than religious fanaticism or hatred to make someone take innocent lives, but recognise the true roots of ISIS-inspired terror and they can be addressed.

It was a reading festival. But this is Mosul, and until a few months ago it was crawling with Islamic State militants. They occupied the city's university library, where last week festival-goers celebrated a rich culture and donated books. The volunteer effort to save what was left of Mosul University library after it was destroyed by IS has renewed hope for the city after more than two years of occupation.

A German teenager who ran away to join ISIS may yet face the death penalty, Iraq's Prime Minister has warned. Linda Wenzel was dragged from the rubble in Mosul as Iraqi forces liberated the city in July and is now being held in Baghdad where her fate rests in the hands of the country's court system.

Two Russian submarines have fired Kalibr cruise missiles from the Mediterranean Sea, hitting Islamic State terrorist targets in Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. Seven Kalibr cruise missiles were launched Thursday from Russia’s Velikiy Novgorod and Kolpino submarines in the eastern Mediterranean, the Russian Defense Ministry said.