The CIA's release of documents seized during the 2011 raid that killed al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has again raised questions about Iran's support of the extremist network leading up to the September 11 terror attacks.

The older brother of a French extremist who killed seven people in a series of attacks on a Jewish school and soldiers is going on trial accused of complicity in the 2012 shooting spree which in retrospect marked the start of an era of home-grown jihadi violence in France.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast.

A Pakistani court has sentenced two former police officers to 17 years in prison for failing to protect former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, but acquitted five suspected militants who had confessed to taking part in her 2007 assassination.

President Donald Trump's plan to end the stalemate in Afghanistan and eliminate the rising extremist threat involves sending up to 3,900 additional US forces, senior officials said.

US-backed Iraqi forces have launched a multi-pronged assault to retake the town of Tal Afar, west of Mosul, marking the next phase in the country's war against Islamic State.

Suspected Islamic extremists have attacked a Turkish restaurant popular with foreigners in Burkina Faso's capital, killing at least 18 people.

A German man believed to have provided logistical support to the Hamburg-based September 11 hijackers has died, according to a newly released audio message from the leader of al-Qaida.

The US military has said it carried out a drone strike in Somalia that killed a member of the al-Shabab extremist group, while Somalia's government said it believes the strike killed a high-level al-Shabab commander responsible for several deadly bombings in the capital.

Twelve Ugandan soldiers were killed and seven others injured in an ambush by al-Shabab Islamic extremists in southern Somalia on Sunday, Uganda's military said.

An air strike targeting an Islamic State-run jail in eastern Syria has killed at least 42 prisoners, activists said.

The Islamic State terror group has claimed responsibility for an attack on a bus carrying Coptic Christians in Egypt in which 29 people were killed.

The 22-year-old's visit to his family's native country fuelled concerns he was preparing for Monday's deadly assault under the guidance of hardened jihadists.

Khalid Mohammed Omar Ali was arrested last month in Whitehall, where he was allegedly carrying three knives.

A weapons-obsessed student is facing years behind bars for planting a home-made bomb on a busy Tube train.

An attack by Islamic State on an area held by the Syrian government in southern Aleppo province has been repulsed by troops and allied fighters, the military reports.

Here's your lunchtime news bulletin.

The evacuation of more than 3,000 Syrians from four areas as part of a population transfer has been postponed a day after a deadly blast killed more than 120 people, many of them government supporters.

Seven suspected Islamic State recruiters have been arrested by authorities investigating Monday's deadly explosion on the St Petersburg subway.

At least seven people have been killed by a massive car bomb blast at a restaurant in Somalia's capital.

The wife of Westminster attacker Khalid Masood has said she is "saddened and shocked" by the atrocity, saying she "condemns" his actions.

Syrian government warplanes have pounded a rebel-held neighbourhood in the central city of Homs, killing at least three people and wounding dozens, opposition activists said.

Counter-terrorism authorities in Europe warned of the risk that refugees could be targeted by extremist recruiters weeks before the Berlin Christmas market carnage.

Update 10.38pm: A truck has rammed into a crowded Christmas market in central Berlin, killing at least nine people as it tore through tables and wooden stands.

A deal to evacuate trapped civilians and fighters in war-ravaged east Aleppo and two Syrian villages has been thrown into doubt after assailants torched six buses assigned to the operation.

A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up outside a military camp in the southern Yemeni city of Aden on Sunday morning, killing at least 30 soldiers, Yemeni officials said.

The FBI and New York Police Department are assessing the credibility of information received about a possible al Qaida terror attack against the US on the eve of election day.

Gunmen stormed a police training centre in Pakistan's troubled Baluchistan province and detonated explosive vests, killing at least 48 trainees.

America has dismissed an eight-hour pause in attacks by Russian and Syrian forces on rebel-held eastern districts of Aleppo as "too little, too late".

A top commander in Syria's rebranded al Qaida affiliate who was close to terror network leader Ayman al-Zawahri has been killed in an air strike, the group said.

The sister of a man charged with setting off bombs in New Jersey and New York told police in 2014 that he was getting ready to hit her with a dumbbell and stabbed another brother in the leg when he tried to help her, police reports show.

Four staff have been killed in an air strike on a medical facility in Syria, a relief group has said.

The United States, Russia and more than a dozen other countries have declared that Syria's ceasefire is not dead despite increasing violence on the ground.

A ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia is set to begin in Syria at sunset today.

Ten people were killed when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden car outside the United Nations Mine Action Service offices in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, a police official said.

A gunman who pledged his allegiance to Islamic State before he massacred 49 people at a gay nightclub in the US had “strong indications of radicalisation”, the FBI said.

World and regional powers have agreed to try and turn a fragile truce in Syria into a comprehensive ceasefire.

The Syrian al Qaida branch and allied fighters from ultraconservative rebel factions have seized a village of President Bashar Assad's minority Alawite sect in central Syria.

A fragile and limited ceasefire in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo and its surrounding countryside has been extended for the third time, for another 48 hours starting at 1am this morning, the Syrian military said yesterday.

Three Spanish journalists who were held captive in Syria for nearly 10 months have returned safely to Madrid after being freed.

The Obama administration will likely soon release at least part of a 28-page secret chapter from a congressional inquiry into 9/11 that may shed light on possible Saudi connections to the attackers.

At least 22 militants have been killed in an air strike on an al Qaida-affiliated headquarters in northern Syria, a monitoring group has said.

Islamic State is relatively new to the terrorist game. Brutal it may be, but already it is light years ahead of others in the darkly encrypted world of cyber technology.