Middle East

• At least four Israelis have been killed and eight injured when two men with a pistol, knives and axes attacked a West Jerusalem synagogue, police say.

He runs his terror group like a CEO -- with spreadsheets on missions, assassinations and captured assets.

A 14-year-old Israeli girl has been stabbed to death in an attack in the West Bank, hours after another knife attack wounded a soldier in Tel Aviv.

A court in Kabul has sentenced a religious teacher to 20 years in prison after he was found guilty of raping a 10-year-old girl. The judgment was welcomed by women's groups.

Air strikes by U.S.-led forces have killed 553 Islamist fighters and 32 civilians during a month-long campaign in Syria, a monitoring group which tracks the violence said on Thursday.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said he is setting up an inquiry into attacks on UN facilities during Israel's recent offensive in Gaza.

Islamic State militants are retreating in parts of the northern Syrian town of Kobane in the face of US-led air strikes, a Kurdish official has said.

The Algerian extremist group Jund al-Khalifa - Arabic for Soldiers of the Caliphate - was little known before it released a video message showing the execution of French hostage Herve Gourdel on September 24.

An eight-year-old boy from Kosovo has been reunited with his mother after his jihadist father kept him for five months in Syria.

Hundreds of thousands of people are evacuated as Cyclone Hudhud pounds the eastern Indian coast, killing at least six.

Heavy fighting reported between Kurdish militias and ISIL advancing on the northern Syrian town of Kobane.

Shia rebels tell Al Jazeera they will remain in the capital despite signing a peace agreement saying they would leave.

Peshmerga forces backed by US-led coalition air power launch pre-dawn attacks on three fronts against ISIL.

Ashraf Ghani has been sworn in as Afghanistan's new president, replacing Hamid Karzai in the country's first democratic transfer of power.

 The US-led coalition has targeted oil refineries in Syria during a third night of air strikes against Islamic State (IS) militants.

 Medics carrying out a vaccination programme in rebel-held northern Syria accidentally administered a muscle relaxant to up to 75 children, killing 15 of them, the opposition says.

 The CIA says the Islamic State (IS) militant group may have up to 31,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria - three times as many as previously feared.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has landed in Baghdad in Iraq at the start of a Middle East tour to build support for action against Islamic State.

Police in Yemen have shot at anti-government Shia protesters in the capital, Sanaa, killing at least one person, witnesses say.

Afghanistan's finance minister has said deadlock over the disputed presidential election has cost the economy $5bn.