A Russian soldier has been killed in Syria, a regional governor said Friday, without giving details of his death.

The Islamic State group killed five men in Iraq for smuggling people out of territory it controls, the SITE Intelligence Group said on Friday.

Israel has razed more Palestinian homes and other structures so far this year than in all of 2015, the United Nations said Friday, as the United States and France expressed concern.

Islamic State group fighters seized around 2,000 civilians to use as "human shields" Friday as they fled their stronghold of Manbij in northern Syria, U.S.-backed forces and a monitor said.

The Arab-Kurdish alliance known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) expelled most of the IS fighters from the town last week, but a small number remained.

Twenty-three Egyptian workers kidnapped in Libya were freed and returned to their country on Friday, Egyptian state television reported.

One of the freed Egyptians told state television they had been kidnapped by people demanding ransom, in an interview at a border crossing between the neighboring North African countries.

Turkey on Friday vowed to cooperate with Iran on resolving the conflict in Syria, despite Tehran and Ankara so far taking opposing sides in a civil war that has lasted more than five years.

The office of the United Nations' human rights office says deaths among civilians due to Yemen's conflict have been "steadily mounting" with more than 200 people killed and more than 500 wounded in four months, including 50 in one week.

The spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Ravina Shamdasain said on Friday that violence has been escalating across Yemen.

The U.N. refugee agency says that more than 100,000 people have been displaced as Iraqi forces clear territory ahead of the critical battle for the Islamic State-held city of Mosul.

Iraqi leaders have repeatedly promised that Mosul — in IS hands for more than two years — will be retaken from the militant group this year, though U.S. officials have said that timeline is unrealistic.

Israel is working to transplant an illegal West Bank settlement scheduled for demolition to Palestinian land nearby, effectively legalizing the rogue outpost, an Israeli NGO said Friday.

Ukraine's security service said on Thursday it had blocked channels being used by jihadists traveling to fight with the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq and detained an "IS recruiter" from one of the former Soviet republics.