Syrian rebels including jihadists counter-attacked the army and its allies on October 28 aiming to break a weeks-long siege on eastern Aleppo, insurgents said.

NC US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump criticized Democrat Hillary Clinton on October 27 over her trade policies, saying she would handle trade deals so badly that the country should "just cancel the election" and name him the victor.

The Iraqi army was trying on October 27 to reach a town south of Mosul where Islamic State has reportedly executed dozens to deter the population against any attempt to support the US-led offensive on the jihadists' last major city stronghold in Iraq.

Air strikes by Syrian or Russian warplanes on October 26 killed at least 26 people, most of them schoolchildren, in a village in Syria's rebel-held Idlib province, rescue workers and a monitoring group said.

Britain said on October 26 it will send fighter jets to Romania next year and the United States promised troops, tanks and artillery to Poland in NATO's biggest military build-up on Russia's borders since the Cold War.

Islamic State fighters kept up on October 26 their fierce defense of the southern approaches to Mosul, which has held up Iraqi troops there and forced an elite army unit east of the city to put a more rapid advance on hold.

The United States on October 26 abstained for the first time from a United Nations General Assembly vote on a resolution calling for an end to a US economic embargo on Cuba, after opposing such measures every year for 24 years.

An elite unit of the Iraqi army paused its week-long advance on Mosul as it approached the city's eastern edge on October 25, waiting for other US-backed forces to close in on Islamic State's last major urban stronghold in Iraq.

Russia said on October 25 it would extend a moratorium on air strikes on Syria's Aleppo into a ninth day, but a monitor and a civil defense official said that rebel-held parts of the divided city had been struck in recent days.

US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said on October 25 that Democrat Hillary Clinton's plan for Syria would "lead to World War Three," because of the potential for conflict with military forces from nuclear-armed Russia.