- Angry questions in Germany after Christmas market attack
- China's Zheng pulls out of season-opening United Cup
- Minorities fear targeted attacks in post-revolution Bangladesh
- Tatum's 43-point triple-double propels Celtics over Bulls
- Tunisia women herb harvesters struggle with drought and heat
- Trump threatens to take back control of Panama Canal
- India's architecture fans guard Mumbai's Art Deco past
- Secretive game developer codes hit 'Balatro' in Canadian prairie province
- Large earthquake hits battered Vanuatu
- Beaten Fury says Usyk got 'Christmas gift' from judges
- First Singaporean golfer at Masters hopes 'not be in awe' of heroes
- Usyk beats Fury in heavyweight championship rematch
- Stellantis backtracks on plan to lay off 1,100 at US Jeep plant
- Atletico snatch late win at Barca to top La Liga
- Australian teen Konstas ready for Indian pace challenge
- Strong quake strikes off battered Vanuatu
- Tiger Woods and son Charlie share halfway lead in family event
- Bath stay out in front in Premiership as Bristol secure record win
- Mahomes shines as NFL-best Chiefs beat Texans to reach 14-1
- Suspect in deadly Christmas market attack railed against Islam, Germany
- MLB legend Henderson, career stolen base leader, dead at 65
- Albania announces shutdown of TikTok for at least a year
- Laboured Napoli take top spot in Serie A
- Schick hits four as Leverkusen close gap to Bayern on sombre weekend
- Calls for more safety measures after Croatia school stabbings
- Jesus double lifts Christmas spirits for five-star Arsenal
- Frankfurt miss chance to close on Bayern as attack victims remembered
- NBA fines Celtics coach Mazzulla and Nets center Claxton
- Banned Russian skater Valieva stars at Moscow ice gala
- Leading try scorer Maqala takes Bayonne past Vannes in Top 14
- Struggling Southampton appoint Juric as new manager
- Villa heap pain on slumping Man City as Forest soar
- Suspect in deadly Christmas market attack railed against Islam and Germany
- At least 32 die in bus accident in southeastern Brazil
- Freed activist Paul Watson vows to 'end whaling worldwide'
- Chinese ship linked to severed Baltic Sea cables sets sail
- Sorrow and fury in German town after Christmas market attack
- Guardiola vows Man City will regain confidence 'sooner or later' after another defeat
- Ukraine drone hits Russian high-rise 1,000km from frontline
- Villa beat Man City to deepen Guardiola's pain
- 'Perfect start' for ski great Vonn on World Cup return
- Germany mourns five killed, hundreds wounded in Christmas market attack
- Odermatt soars to Val Gardena downhill win
- Mbappe's adaptation period over: Real Madrid's Ancelotti
- France's most powerful nuclear reactor finally comes on stream
- Ski great Vonn finishes 14th on World Cup return
- Scholz visits site of deadly Christmas market attack
- Heavyweight foes Usyk, Fury set for titanic rematch
- Drone attack hits Russian city 1,000km from Ukraine frontier
- Former England winger Eastham dies aged 88
Kurds advance on jihadists in besieged Syria jail: monitor
Kurdish forces slowly advanced Wednesday inside a Syria prison where jihadists have been holed up for six days, in violence that has cost hundreds of lives, a war monitor said.
More than 100 jihadists of the Islamic State group last week attacked Ghwayran prison in the northeast Syrian city of Hasakeh, held by a semi-autonomous Kurdish administration.
The brazen assault on the Kurdish-run prison involved a double suicide bombing and saw the jihadists free fellow IS members.
It is considered the most sophisticated attack carried out by the group since it was territorially defeated in Syria nearly three years ago.
On Wednesday, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and allied fighters "carried out search operations inside prison blocks" and in areas surrounding the facility, where intermittent clashes had broken out overnight, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
US-backed Kurdish forces were "advancing slowly" inside the facility where jihadists were still holed up, said the Britain-based monitor.
Fighting in and around the prison since Thursday has killed 181 people, including 124 IS jihadists, 50 Kurdish fighters and seven civilians, according to the Observatory.
Kurdish forces have freed 32 prison staff, some of whom appeared in video footage that IS had shared on social media after launching the attack, the Observatory says.
Some of the jihadists have also reportedly surrendered.
Farhad Shami, who heads the SDF media office, told AFP on Tuesday that "more than 850 terrorist inmates, who either participated in the attack or the mutiny, have surrendered" since the onset of the assault.
Shami said Kurdish forces had called on the IS members to "safely surrender," but denied reports of negotiations with the jihadists.
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman on Wednesday said that a Syrian IS leader was negotiating with Kurdish forces to end the mutiny and secure medical care for wounded jihadists.
"This issue is an international problem," Abdulkarim Omar, head of foreign relations in the Kurdish semi-autonomous administration, told AFP on Wednesday.
"We cannot face it alone."
He called on the international community to "support the autonomous administration to improve security and humanitarian conditions for inmates in detention centres and for those in overcrowded camps."
IS's self-declared caliphate, established from 2014, once stretched across vast parts of Syria and Iraq and administered millions of inhabitants.
A long and deadly military fightback led by Syrian and Iraqi forces with backing from the United States and other powers eventually defeated the jihadist proto-state in March 2019.
P.L.Madureira--PC