Coalition air forces pounded positions held by Islamic State in Ramadi on December 24, Iraqi military statements said, in support of government troops seeking to retake the western Iraqi city and push on to drive the militants from key population centers.

Three Kurdish rebels were killed in clashes with police in Turkey's southeastern city of Diyarbakir December 24, security sources said, and shots and shellfire could be heard around an area that has been focus of an army offensive against rebels.

A man was pulled out alive from rubble in a southern Chinese city on December 23, more than 60 hours after a waste heap collapsed and buried dozens of buildings in mud and construction debris, state media said.

One person was killed when an explosion hit an Istanbul airport overnight and damaged five planes, a Turkish minister said, adding that it was still too early to confirm whether the blast had been caused by a bomb.

Iraq's army chief was quoted on December 23 as saying he needed only days to drive Islamic State from Ramadi, the city whose fall in May exposed the weakness of the Baghdad government and dampened hopes of restoring control in the north and west.

The UN Security Council on December 23 endorsed a UN-brokered agreement among Libya's warring factions to form a national unity government, a deal Western powers hope will bring stability and help to combat a growing Islamic State presence.

Turkish tanks on December 22 pounded Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) targets in Cizre, a southeastern town at the heart of a military operation that the army said has killed 127 Kurdish militants in a week.

A female officer in the Air Force, who was one of the first openly gay service members to get married, was identified on December 22 as being among six US troops killed by a suicide bomber near Bagram air base in Afghanistan.

Islamic State militants in eastern Afghanistan have taken to the airwaves to win recruits as they try to build strength and replace the Taliban as the leading force in the Islamist insurgency.

Six American troops were killed in Afghanistan on December 21 when a suicide bomber on a motorbike struck their patrol near Bagram air base, officials said, the deadliest attack on US forces this year.