Lindsey Hilsum
We are running out of words to describe the vandals of the Islamic State (IS) who not only show merciless cruelty to the living but are seeking to destroy the heritage left by the long dead. A new video, released on a jihadi website, shows men climbing ladders to take mallets and hammers to friezes…
A mentally-ill British grandfather is among more than 19,000 people on death row in Pakistan, according to human rights group Amnesty International.
Jonathan Rugman
The UK’s emphasis on Islamist terrorism has meant it has ignored the traditional threat from nation states like Russia, according to a former head of MI6.
Families desert Libya’s coastal city of Sirte after two days of clashes between Islamic State militants and fighters loyal to a government based in Tripoli.
Lindsey Hilsum
Graffiti sprayed last year on the ruins of Cyrene, in Libya, reads: “Destroy the Idols”. Islamists, including Islamic State militants, see such pre-Islamic structures as sacrilege.
The tomb of Iraq’s late dictator Saddam Hussein is severely damaged in heavy clashes between militants from the Islamic State militants and Iraqi security forces in Tikrit.
Three British teenagers who were stopped in Turkey on their way to Syria are back in the UK and are being held at a central London police station, Scotland Yard says.
Australia’s government is trying to confirm that an Australian teenager was among Islamic State suicide bombers in central Iraq. PM Tony Abbott called the reports “absolutely horrific”.
Philip Hammond praises the “brilliance” of spies, amid suggestions Mohammed Emwazi – aka “Jihadi John” – may have been radicalised after attempted recruitment by MI5.
The leader of the Nigerian Islamist group says his fighters will obey Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-styled “caliph” whose followers have seized swathes of Iraq and Syria.
Islamist militants in Iraq have blown up and bulldozed the remains of the 2,000-year-old city of Hatra, the Iraqi government says.
Lindsey Hilsum
Visitors to the British Museum can see the magnificent winged bulls taken from Nimrud, in northern Iraq. But Iraqis living there are cowering in terror as their history is annihilated.
Islamic State fighters looted and bulldozed the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq, government officials say.
Lindsey Hilsum
A combined force of Iraqi army, Shia militia and Kurdish peshmerga is trying to retake Tikrit from IS. But it is more likely to want vengeance than an orderly retaking of the area.
Iraq’s armed forces, backed by Shia militia, begin a a campaign aimed at driving Islamic State militants out of Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit.