Former defence forces soldier Lisa Smith has been denied bail after she appeared in a court in Dublin charged with membership of the ISIS terrorist organisation.

Lisa Smith has had her period of detention extended to a third day.

For Islamic extremists, African gold mines are a treasure trove both of explosives and funds to recruit new members and buy arms, writes David Lewis and Ryan McNeill

Irish Islamic State supporter Lisa Smith and her daughter may not arrive back home until next week as Irish officials in Turkey conduct checks to confirm their identities, particularly that of her two-year-old girl, the Irish Examiner understands.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State (IS), is dead.

The brutal ‘reign’ of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of IS, self-proclaimed caliph, and the world’s most wanted man, has ended, write Ahmed Rasheed and Ahmed Aboulenein.

The camp is home to some 12,000 people, including nearly 1,000 foreign women with links to IS and their children.

The report, citing Irish security sources, said all five people had sentences for funding terrorist offences abroad, rather than participating in terror plots here.

Far from being defeated, Islamic State continue to battle on several fronts, write Anne-Marie Slaughter and Asha C Castleberry

The solicitor representing Irish woman Lisa Smith who travelled to join Islamic State in Syria, is calling on the Irish government to bring her home and if necessary prosecute her under Irish law.

The contrast, and the parallels too, in the stories of Lisa Smith and Keith Byrne are worth considering.

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan has downplayed the possibility of the Government helping to bring Isis bride Lisa Smith back to Ireland, saying "anybody who goes to Syria doesn't go there on holidays".

His comments follow those of Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty has called for Ms Smith and her two-year-old daughter to be brought home to Ireland.

The re-emergence of fugitive Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi for the first time in five years, is not an occasion for celebration.

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has appeared for the first time in five years in a video released by the extremist group.

The Government should not find it too difficult to meet its responsibility in facilitating the return of former Air Corps corporal Lisa Smith and her child from Syria, UN special rapporteur Fionnuala Ní Aoláin has said.

Lisa Smith, the Irish woman who went to Syria is 2015 and married an ISIS fighter, has said that she wants to come home to Ireland.

Efforts to repatriate so-called Isis brides could be fast-tracked, including former Defence Forces recruit Lisa Smith.

Former justice minister Dermot Ahern has said he is surprised that the radicalisation of Irish Islamic State bride Lisa Smith did not ring alarm bells given that she began the process while serving in the army.

The Government jet will not be used to bring home ‘Isis bride’ Lisa Marie Smith.

Lisa Smith, an Irish woman who was married to a fighter in Syria, will be allowed home and will be difficult to prosecute, but it is uncertain what returnee policy should be, says Sheelagh Brady.

Defence Minister Paul Kehoe says Lisa Smith will be treated like any Irish citizen who finds themselves in trouble abroad.

The Taoiseach says the State will have to determine if an Irish woman detained in Syria is a threat to Ireland should she return.

A leading Muslim cleric says he would not feel safe having Islamic State suspect, Lisa Smith, roaming the streets of Ireland unless she goes through a process to de-radicalise her.

Engaging and kind, vulnerable and gullible, extreme and dangerous - the varied descriptions are given by people who knew, or thought they knew, Lisa Smith.

A former female Defence Forces soldier arrested in Syria on suspicion of joining Islamic State (IS) also served in the Air Corps, where she helped work on the government jet.

Iraq and the Kurdish regional government have charged hundreds of children with terrorism for alleged affiliation with the Islamic State group, often using torture to coerce confessions, Human Rights Watch said.

A file not yet, as far as we know, on Leo Varadkar’s desk is one marked Jihadi Returners, so the question as to what the Government should do with, or to, any who say they want to come home to Ireland is hypothetical.

In an interview with the BBC, Shamima Begum, now 19, said the deaths of 22 innocent people in the terrorist attack on an Ariana Grande concert in 2017 were akin to the "women and children" being bombed in IS territory in Baghuz.

The offensive on the last enclave held by the Islamic State group in eastern Syria has been blunted by the discovery of hundreds of civilians still living there, a commander with the Kurdish-led force fighting the extremists said.

The vast dystopian caliphate created by Islamic State is over, but among the moral challenges it leaves for Western governments is the quandary of what, if anything, to do with those of its citizens who travelled to Syria and Iraq as jihadi brides and so-called IS fighters — so-called because these young men were not fighters in the normal military sense of the word; they were terrorists, participating zealously in a regime of unrestrained cruelty.

The United Nations (UN) Security Council has issued a report stating that the Islamic State are still a major threat to international peace and security.

Garda security units are expected to conduct a fresh review into a naturalised Irish citizen who was captured fighting for Islamic State (IS) in Syria.

It would be a matter of the greatest concern if it was proven that an Islamic State member had obtained Irish citizenship despite being on a garda watchlist of terrorist suspects.

Monitoring suspects and managing returnees to this country is the priority, writes security correspondent Cormac O’Keeffe.

Speaking from Mali on Monday, where he is visiting Irish Defence Forces, Leo Varadkar, said: "I’ve only heard about that in the last short while."

With enough recent crises and challenges — Iran, Israel, Yemen, North Korea, Russia and Brexit — to keep foreign ministries fully occupied, it’s possible to overlook one that, having exploded 16 years ago, still burns: Afghanistan’s war goes on and on, currently at a low level but threatening to detonate again as the Taliban and increasingly Islamic State (IS) step up their campaigns across the country.

There was one jihadi arrest in Ireland in 2016 and another individual was detained for Islamic State activity and travel issues in 2015, research shows.

Iraqi forces in co-ordination with US-backed Syrian forces have captured five senior Islamic State leaders, the US-led coalition said.

An Irish photographer who captured the human cost of the battle for the city of Mosul in Iraq has spoken of his hope for the country and his time embedded with Iraqi forces during some of the bloodiest fighting against Islamic State (IS).

Airstrikes have killed at least 23 civilians in one of the last pockets of Islamic State-controlled territory in Syria, according to Syrian state media.

Two Islamic State suicide bombers have struck in Kabul, killing 25 people, including nine journalists who had rushed to the scene of the first attack, in the deadliest assault on reporters since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

Syrian government forces briefly captured four villages east of the Euphrates River in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour on Sunday after rare clashes with US-backed Kurdish-led fighters, then lost the area in a counter-offensive by the Kurdish-led force.

A co-ordinated double suicide bombing hit central Kabul this morning, killing 21 people, including an AFP photographer and a cameraman for a local TV station, Afghan officials said.

Fighting between Syrian troops and Islamic State fighters in southern neighbourhoods of Damascus has left dozens of people dead or wounded, according to a war monitor and Syrian state media.

A suicide bomber has struck a voter registration centre in the Afghan capital on Sunday, killing at least 12 people, officials said.

Militants from the so-called 'Islamic State' (IS) group have reportedly agreed to give up their last pocket in Damascus, as the government seeks to retake the entire Syrian capital and its surrounding areas for the first time since 2011.

Italian police have arrested five people connected to the Tunisian man who carried out the 2016 Berlin Christmas market lorry attack and was later killed in a shootout with police in Italy.

A couple from Somalia have been accused of keeping their four children at home and trying to brainwash them with videos of Muslim extremism, a UK High Court judge has said.