Violence against Shia Muslims

Turkey has condemned a recent attack on a mosque in the western Afghan city of Herat, which killed at least 20 people and injured 30 others on Aug. 1.

The attack took place in the Bakat Abad area of the relatively peaceful Herat - the country's third largest city. 

A 16-year-old German Islamic State bride, who reportedly joined the jihadist group after being radicalised online, has been captured by Iraqi forces in the ruins of Mosul.

Linda Wenzel, from the small town of Pulsnitz, near Dresden, was discovered by troops with a group of 20 other suspected foreign female Isil members in a tunnel under the Old City on Thursday.

Adel, 15, hasn't seen his parents for the past nine months, but that was the price to pay to escape the brutal rule of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadists in his northern Iraqi hometown.

Iraq has received congratulations from several countries, including Turkey, for its landmark victory over the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Mosul, a city where the jihadist group had first declared its so-called caliphate. 

At first sight the picture appears to show a mother cradling her young child as she flees an Islamic State-held area of Mosul.

But a closer look reveals she is holding a trigger, which she will pull seconds later.

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants attacked a village south of Mosul, killing several people including two journalists, even as they were about to lose their last redoubt in the city to an Iraqi military onslaught, security sources said on July 7.

After eight months of grinding urban warfare, Iraqi government troops on June 29 captured the ruined mosque in Mosul from where Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) proclaimed its self-styled caliphate three years ago, the Iraqi military said.

The battle to take full control of Mosul from Islamic State of  Iraq and the Levant will be over in a few days and an attempted fight-back by the militants failed, an Iraqi general told Reuters on June 26.

More than 5 million children are in urgent need of aid in Iraq, the United Nations said on Thursday, describing the war on Islamic State as "one of the most brutal" in modern history.

"Across Iraq, children continue to witness sheer horror and unimaginable violence," the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) said in a statement.

Writing in an encrypted chat room, Islamic State sympathizers and militants celebrated the three-year anniversary of the terrorist organization’s capture of Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city.

Despite losing most of Mosul to the U.S.-backed international coalition, the IS supporters vowed that they would return and take control over the entire city once more.