The security minister, Ben Wallace, has said he would not put officials’ lives at risk to rescue UK citizens who went to Syria and Iraq to join Islamic State, insisting “actions have consequences”. “I’m not putting at risk British people’s lives to...
The Taliban on Saturday announced a surprise three-day ceasefire with the Afghan government for the duration of Eid al-Fitr, the religious holiday that marks the end of Ramadan. The halt in hostilities at the end of this week comes two days after th...
Islamic State and the Taliban are engaged in a bitter battle over control of mines in Afghanistan that supply much of the talcum used by European and US consumers. The mineral, used in everything from baby powder and cosmetics to paint and car parts...
A family of five including an eight-year-old child have carried out a bomb attack on a police headquarters in Indonesia’s second largest city, a day after another family killed 13 people in coordinated suicide bombings. Police said the five approac...
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The latest, dreadful suicide bombings in Kabul and Kandahar, which killed more than 50 people on Monday, have again focused attention on the continuing failure of American-led efforts to stabilise the country. After 16 years of conflict, critics say...
There are moments of great tension in this film about the work of an extraordinarily brave mine-disposal expert, or “deminer”, in Iraq. It is of real value in the raw archive material it presents, though often frustrating in that its footage is most...
“Even if we work every day for the next six months, we still won’t finish this job – we don’t have enough support or equipment,” says Muhammed Shaban, an officer of the Civil Defence Force in west Mosul, in the exhausted tone of someone who is unabl...