#mosque-bombings

#mosque-bombings

"It's like a storm closing in on us, and every week brings a new cloud," said John Aylieff, WFP's country director in Afghanistan. "The latest big, dark cloud is the Iran crisis."

This was not random violence. This was a planned attack motivated by extremist ideology and inspired by a violent foreign terrorist organization. With this, she promptly raised the profile of both the suspects, Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi, and of ISIS itself. It hardly seemed to matter that no evidence has surfaced that directly ties these men to the larger movement.

Nigeria recorded the largest increase in terrorism deaths globally in 2025, with fatalities rising by 46% from 513 in 2024 to 750, placing it fourth in the Global Terrorism Index, behind Pakistan, Burkina Faso and Niger. Africa's most populous nation is grappling with a multifaceted security crisis as extremist groups such as Boko Haram and its offshoots attempt to carve out control of swathes of territory.

Two weeks into the war that President Donald Trump initially said was intended to force regime change in Tehran, the Iranians living here say their families are mostly huddled at home, trying to avoid both the U.S.-Israeli strikes and supporters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) patrolling the streets with guns.

The Houthis, a Zaydi Shiite Islamist rebel group, which the U.S. has designated as a foreign terrorist organization, are among Iran's most powerful and resilient allies. They are a key part of the so-called Axis of Resistance, an informal Iran-led military coalition in the Middle East. During his speech, al-Houthi suggested that the Houthis were ready to lend military support to Iran: 'We are fully prepared for any necessary developments,' he said.

Due to clashes between Syrian interim government forces and the Syrian Kurdish militias that controlled much of the northeast, the prisons and detention camps holding "Islamic State," or IS, members changed hands. In the ensuing chaos, some IS members and their relatives escaped from detention camps. Others were moved to Iraqi prisons. Between January 21 and February 12, the US military helped transport more than 5,700 prisoners out of Syria.

All of a sudden, two major provinces that were under the Kurdish forces' control fell in a number of hours and Syrian government forces swept in, he tells Annie Kelly. Soon the forces were at al-Hawl camp, the largest camp holding suspected Islamic State militants and then they were taking it over. In the chaos of the handover, more than 100 prisoners escaped and not all were found again.

A few hours later, the first group of wounded people from Malekshahi those who could not be treated at home were rushed to the hospital where Shirin works. "More than 40 injured people, covered in blood, were brought to us," the 38-year-old recalled. "Most had been shot in the upper body neck, chest, shoulders. Two of them died on the way here. Two young men."