Iraqi forces say that one of the highest religious authorities in the Islamic State group has been killed in Mosul. An Iraqi commander said Abdullah al-Badrani, also known as Abu Ayoub al-Atar, died in an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition on Thursday. Badrani is thought to have been a key member of IS in Mosul.
China has warned against increasing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, saying there was a feeling a conflict could break out at any time. Washington has threatened to take unilateral action against Pyongyang's nuclear programme. The North has said it will respond mercilessly to what it called U.S. provocation.
读而思
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unilateral：[juːnɪ'læt(ə)r(ə)l]
adj. 单边的；[植] 单侧的；单方面的；单边音；（父母）单系的
mercilessly：['mɝsɪlɪsli]
adv. 残忍地；毫无慈悲地
provocation：[,prɒvə'keɪʃ(ə)n]
n. 挑衅；激怒；挑拨
America's top military commander in Afghanistan says the decision to drop a powerful bomb on Islamic State militants was based purely on technical considerations. General Nicholson said the U.S. armed forces' most powerful non-nuclear bomb had been the right weapon. IS has denied suffering casualties.
Several thousand people have been evacuated from four besieged towns in Syria. They are the first of up to 30,000 people due to be moved. Inhabitants from two government-held towns in opposition territory in the province of Idlib arrived in near the city of Aleppo. A similar operation took place in two rebel-held towns west of Damascus.
At least six people were killed and ten injured when part of a huge rubbish dump collapsed onto about forty homes in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo. Troops and emergency workers are digging through rotten garbage in search of anyone else trapped by the 19-metre high mount of rubbish.
German media are reporting that a study commissioned by investigators has flagged up significant doubt that letters found in the aftermath of Tuesday's bombing of a German football team's bus were written by radical Islamists. They've said political extremists or violent football fans could also be responsible for the attack on the Borussia Dortmund bus.
