Catalonia's government has until 0800 GMT on Thursday to tell Madrid whether or not he is declaring independence from Spain.

The Islamic State group's defeat in Raqa, their de facto Syrian capital, raises a thorny question for the US forces that have been training and arming the victorious local fighters: What comes next?

Syria's war has spiraled into a complex multi-sided conflict since it began with anti-government protests in March 2011, drawing in regional and international powers including the United States and Russia. 

The Islamic State group seized swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014, but its self-declared caliphate has now been crushed and it has lost its de facto Syrian capital Raqa. 

A U.S.-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, the Syrian Democratic Forces, said it had fully captured the Islamic State group's former Syrian stronghold Raqa on Tuesday.

The rescue of an abducted US-Canadian family in Pakistan last week has spotlighted their captors the Haqqani network, former CIA assets now considered one of the most dangerous factions fighting US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Iraqi forces have launched a major military operation in Kirkuk province, three weeks into a deepening crisis between Baghdad and the country's Kurds since their September 25 independence referendum.

The crisis between Iraq's central government and the autonomous Kurdish region is rooted in a long-standing dispute over territory stretching from the Syrian border to the frontier with Iran.

The reported death of Islamic State's top leader in Southeast Asia is a major blow to the jihadists but analysts warn it remains a potent threat, with battle-hardened fighters set to return from the Middle East.

Once the last Islamic State group fighters are ousted from Syria's Raqa, the unconventional forces battling the jihadists say they'll have batteries and masking tape to thank for their victory.