In the buildup to a long-awaited offensive on the city of Mosul, Kurdish forces are seizing new territory in northern Iraq that they say will become part of their autonomous region. The moves are further straining relations between the Kurds and the Baghdad government and Shiite militias, all ostensibly allies in the fight against the Islamic State group.

Just east of Mosul, Kurdish engineering teams on a recent day were laying down a 3-meter wide, 20-kilometer long trench and 2-meter high berms, marking the new front line after recapturing the village of Qarqashah and neighboring hamlets from IS earlier this month.

Syria's conflict broke out in March 2011 with peaceful protests against President Bashar al-Assad's government but has evolved into a complex war involving jihadist groups and regional and international powers.

The conflict and civil strife that has erupted across the eastern Mediterranean region since the Arab Spring began in 2010 has shortened lifespans and damaged health, according to a study released Thursday.

Yemen, Tunisia and Egypt all lost about three months in life expectancy between 2010 and 2013, with deteriorating conditions threatening health gains made over the previous two decades, researchers said.

Communist rebels in the Philippines have fought one of Asia's longest-running insurgencies. Although less numerous and less violent than Muslim separatist rebels in the country's south, the Maoists have outlived successive Philippine administrations and held out against constant military and police offensives, relying on clandestine cells to pass on orders from exiled leaders.

The new Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, has made peace with the rebels a priority, and a new round of marathon peace talks brokered by Norway opens in Oslo on Monday.

When news spread in early July that Indian troops had killed a charismatic commander of Indian-controlled Kashmir's biggest rebel group, the public response was spontaneous and immense. Tens of thousands of angry youths poured out of their homes in towns and villages across the Himalayan region, hurling rocks and bricks and clashing with Indian troops.

A strict curfew and a series of communications blackouts since then have failed to stop the protesters, who are seeking an end to Indian rule in Kashmir, even as residents have struggled to cope with shortages of food, medicine and other necessities. The clashes, with protesters mostly throwing rocks and government forces responding with bullets and shotgun pellets, has left more than 60 civilians and two policemen dead. Thousands of civilians have been injured and hundreds of members of various government security forces.

Haggard and covered in blood, little Omran's blank stare shook the world. But across war-torn Syria, thousands of children like him are traumatized by daily life under bombs and siege.

From Mali to Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, Islamist fighters have regularly turned their sights on the priceless vestiges of peoples' cultural heritage -- for being un-Islamic.

The International Criminal Court on Monday opens the trial of a jihadist on a charge of war crimes for the destruction of shrines at the World Heritage site of Timbuktu in Mali.

Libyan pro-government forces have cornered Islamic State group fighters in a few pockets of Sirte, but defeat there will be far from the end of IS in Libya, analysts say.

Boko Haram's list of victims -- dead, displaced or abducted -- grows longer by the day.

Kids can be seen cleaning windshields or juggling in clown makeup on street corners in Guatemala's cities.