Iraq and Syria saw a sharp drop in the number of people killed in terror attacks last year, a report published Thursday by Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Centre has found.

Barely a month after Baghdad declared victory over the Islamic State group, the jihadists could still recapture areas of Iraq, especially near the border with Syria, experts and officials say.

A Palestinian was killed during clashes with Israeli forces in the north of the occupied West Bank late Wednesday, the Palestinian health ministry announced.

An Israeli citizen convicted of murdering a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank in 2004 was extradited from Brazil on Wednesday, an Israeli NGO said.

Turkey on Wednesday said it was ready to take any steps necessary against a Syrian Kurdish militia to ensure the security of its borders, as speculation mounted of an imminent cross border operation.

A Saudi Arabian preacher was shot dead in Guinea's east after organizing a prayer service that angered some villagers in the majority-Muslim West African country, local sources said Wednesday.

The man, who was a member of a mission building mosques in Upper Guinea, was killed on Tuesday night in the village of Kantebalandougou, between the towns Kankan and Kerouane.

The United Nations will host a new round of peace talks on Syria next week in Vienna, a U.N. statement said Wednesday, just days before Russia opens a conference on ending the war.

An Israeli military judge Wednesday ordered a Palestinian teenager who was arrested after a viral video showed her hitting two Israeli soldiers held in custody through her trial, possibly for months, despite calls from rights groups for her release.

The teenager's mother has also been ordered held until trial in the high-profile case that has put the family at the center of a propaganda war between Israelis and Palestinians.

Syria's main opposition group on Wednesday condemned the U.S.-led coalition's plan to create a 30,000-strong border force on the war-torn country's northern frontier with Turkey.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees warned Wednesday it faced its worst funding crisis ever after the White House froze tens of millions of dollars in contributions, a move Palestinian leaders decried as cruel and blatantly biased.