US-backed Kurdish-led forces fighting Islamic State militants in Syria have said they are waging the "final" battle to uproot the extremists from Raqqa, once the terror group's de facto capital.

British IS recruiter Sally-Anne Jones, dubbed the White Widow, is understood to have been killed in a US drone strike.

Mehmet Aksoy, 32, who grew up in England, is believed to have joined a Kurdish military force, The People's Defence Units, working as a press officer.

A young Corkman fighting Islamic State (IS) in Syria describes life in the “dark mess” of the Raqqa front.

Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk (12A) is an epic tale of the greatest mass rescue of World War II, when 400,000 men of the British Expeditionary Force were left stranded and undefended on Dunkirk beach as the German army closed in for the kill.

The UN said it is using newly opened land routes to expand food deliveries to areas around the Syrian city of Raqqa, where US-backed forces are battling Islamic State militants in their self-declared capital.

Pressed on the claims, Gen Jones said the report is "deeply irresponsible and frankly naive".

Iraqi troops are clearing up a key neighbourhood in Mosul after making significant gains against Islamic State militants in the city and the prime minister declared an end to the extremist group's self-proclaimed caliphate.

Russia is trying to verify reports that its military has killed the leader of the Islamic State group in an air strike targeting a meeting of militant leaders.

A US-backed Syrian force has captured a neighbourhood of the Islamic State group's de-facto capital of Raqqa after two days of fierce fighting.

Prosecutors in Istanbul are seeking 40 consecutive life sentences for the man who attacked a nightclub in Istanbul during New Year's celebrations, killing 39 people, Turkey's state-run news agency reported.

ANY book written about the Syrian civil war can only, sadly, be a a sad book. And this book is no exception.

LATEST: At least 100 people have been killed in the blast near evacuation buses outside Aleppo city, the Syrian opposition rescue service says.

US-backed forces in northern Syria have paused military operations near a dam held by the Islamic State group to allow engineers to fix any problems.

We are all framed by our past but our destiny and final legacy do not need to be defined by it. That is perhaps the key lesson for a troubled world from the life and times of Martin McGuinness and Abdelhamid Abaaoud, suggests Irish Examiner digital editor, Dolan O'Hagan.

At least 40 people have been killed in twin explosions near religious shrines frequented by Shiite pilgrims in the Syrian capital, Damascus, according to Syria's interior minister and media reports.

The Turkish, US and Russian chiefs of military staff were meeting in southern Turkey to discuss developments in Syria and Iraq, Turkey's military said.

Here's your evening update.

Some 50,000 civilians have fled eastern Aleppo over the past two days in a "constant stream", Russia says, as Syrian government forces close in on the last pocket of opposition control.

As many as 200 more US troops are being sent to Syria to help Kurdish and Arab fighters capture Islamic State's key stronghold of Raqqa, defence secretary Ash Carter said.

Plans revealing thousands of plots by the Islamic State (IS) terror group to attack Europe have been discovered by coalition forces fighting the militants in Syria and Iraq, Britain’s top commander in the region has claimed.

Senior gardaí are concerned at the potential threat posed by Irish fighters returning from Syria and Iraq as the assault on Islamic State (IS) intensifies.

Iraqi forces have pushed into a town south of Mosul after Islamic State fighters fled with civilians used as human shields, officials said.

Russia has warned the US against carrying out any attacks on Syrian government forces, claiming there would be repercussions across the Middle East.

Iraqi government forces backed by the US-led coalition are "on the cusp" of taking Islamic State's (IS) last major stronghold in the country, Britain's Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has said.

The top US military officer has told a Senate committee he believes Russia bombed the humanitarian aid convoy in Syria on Monday, calling it an "unacceptable atrocity".

Air strikes by the US-led coalition have killed 28 civilians, including seven children, in a village in northern Syria held by the Islamic State group, according to activists.

A Save the Children-backed maternity hospital in an opposition-held area of northern Syria has been bombed, with casualties reported, the charity has said.

MIRANDA KERR has got engaged to Snapchat co-founder EVAN SPIEGEL.

A little boy whose mother took him to an area of Syria controlled by Islamic terrorists showed a marked and persistent interest in guns and shooting people when he returned to Britain, a family court judge has heard.

The Syrian president has vowed to “liberate” every inch of the country in the same way his troops recaptured the historic town of Palmyra from Islamic State earlier his year.

Victoria White reports from Skaramagas refugee camp, west of Athens, home to 2,800 refugees who fled fighting in Syria but now fear that their hopes of starting life afresh in the West will never be realised

An Iraqi intelligence official says sources in the Syrian city of Raqqa have told them that the Islamic State group has been planning terrorist attacks in Europe for two months which would “target airports and train stations”.

Raqia Hassan risked her life by openly criticising ISIS on Facebook. Her friends, family, and fellow activists remember her determination to tell the world the grim truth about life in Syria. 

New video released by Islamic State shows the extremists who carried out the terror attacks in Paris committing atrocities in IS-controlled territory while plotting the slaughter in the French capital that left 130 people dead.

Air strikes against Islamic State extremists will accelerate in the coming months, French president Francois Hollande has announced.

An Islamic State militant executed his mother in public in the Syrian city of Raqqa, because she had encouraged him to leave the group, reported the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.