A draft European Union plan to send back some migrants to Turkey has legal and moral flaws and could put vulnerable people at risk, the head of Amnesty International said, calling on Europe to take in more people seeking refuge instead.

Germany will pull two Patriot missile batteries, and 250 troops, from southern Turkey by the start of next year, after a reassessment of the threats from the conflict in neighboring Syria.

Two women opened fire yesterday at the heavily protected US consulate in Istanbul, while assailants exploded a car bomb at a police station then fired on police inspecting the scene.

Two gunmen have opened fire at the US Consulate building in Istanbul, sparking a gunfight with police, Turkish media reports said.

Turkish jets hit Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq and the government said strikes would continue until the rebels lay down their arms, despite calls earlier by the pro-Kurdish opposition for an immediate end to the violence and the resumption of peace efforts.

The US and Turkey are finalising plans for a military campaign to push IS out of a strip of Syrian territory along the Turkish border.

Ten Iraqi peshmerga fighters have entered Kobani, the first of a group of 150 Kurdish troops on their way into the embattled Syrian border town, activists said.

A small group of Syrian rebels have entered the embattled border town of Kobani to help Kurdish fighters battling Islamic State (IS) extremists, according to reports.

Syrian Kurds battled to defend a key border town from an Islamic State advance as Kurdish youths from neighbouring Turkey rushed to their aid, heightening the pressure on Ankara to act against the Islamist insurgents.

Kurdish rebels have detonated a car bomb in south-east Turkey, killing an 11-year-old child and wounding 18 other people.

A police officer has been killed and seven other people wounded after a suicide bomber threw a hand grenade and blew himself up at a police station in Turkey, authorities said.

Turkish troops have launched a search for an MP kidnapped by Kurdish rebels near the eastern city of Tunceli, authorities said.

A car bomb driven by two suspected suicide attackers has exploded outside a police station in central Turkey, killing at least one policeman and wounding 11 people.

Turkish security forces have shot dead a Kurdish rebel hijacker after he commandeered a ferry with 18 passengers on board, authorities said.

Two people have been killed and 12 others injured by a suicide bomber in south-eastern Turkey, authorities said.

TURKISH jets have bombed suspected Kurdish rebel bases in neighbouring northern Iraq, according to news reports in Turkey.

A government crackdown on two Syrian towns in the country’s centre and south killed at least 33 people, including an 11-year-old girl shot dead by troops during a fierce shelling, activists have said.

A suicide bomber blew himself up today beside a police vehicle in a major Istanbul square near tourist hotels and a bus terminal, wounding 32 people, including 15 policemen.

A Kurdish separatist was convicted today of a minibus blast in 2005 that killed five people including Waterford teenager Tara Whelan.

Police clashed with stone-throwing demonstrators across the country’s predominantly Kurdish south- east today during protests marking the 10th anniversary of a separatist rebel leader’s capture, state-run media said.

Osama bin Laden is no longer personally planning attacks, but remains significant as a “Che Guevara of al-Qaida” who helps hold together the terror network, Germany’s intelligence chief said in an interview.

TURKEY’S military said its fighter jets attacked Kurdish separatist targets in northern Iraq yesterday and killed a number of guerrillas.

Turkish police have arrested three teenagers in connection with two bomb blasts in a packed Istanbul square which killed 17 people, a newspaper reported today.

Two bombs have exploded minutes apart in a crowded Istanbul square, killing 16 and injuring more than 150 in the deadliest attack against civilians in Turkey in almost five years.

Nineteen Kurdish rebels were killed in military airstrikes in south-east Turkey.

Turkey bombed Kurdish rebel hideouts in northern Iraq today.

Turkey has today ended its massive military raid into northern Iraq, but has denied it was acting under pressure from the West.

Turkish forces pressed ahead with ground operations against Kurdish rebels in Iraq today after the military reported that five troops and several dozen rebels had been killed in the cross-border fighting.

Turkish troops backed by air power crossed into northern Iraq in their first major ground offensive against Kurdish rebel bases in nearly a decade.

Turkish police have detained four people following a bomb attack yesterday in which five people were killed, a prosecutor said today.

Oil prices edged higher today after Turkish attacks on Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq and fresh concerns over US supplies.

Turkish police thwarted a bomb attack in Istanbul today, arresting a 25-year-old man with explosives in his backpack outside an underground station, the city’s governor said.

Turkish helicopter gunships attacked abandoned villages inside Iraq today in the first raids since the recent escalation of border tensions.

Kurdish rebels on today released eight Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq two weeks after capturing them in an ambush inside Turkey, a PKK spokesman said.

The UN chief today appealed for dialogue to resolve fears of a Turkish offensive against Kurdish rebels based in Iraq, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki pledged to work with his country’s neighbours to fight terrorism.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Turkey today to keep up diplomatic pressure on preventing an invasion of northern Iraq.

Turkey today insisted that any cross border raid into Iraq would be a military operation and not an invasion.