COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — No longer burdened by territory and administration, Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi outlined the new path forward for his group: Widen your reach, connect...

They make threats from their hideaway lairs and celebrate mass attacks. The ending isn't scripted for these hunted men with horrifying death tolls on their hands.

BEIRUT (AP) — The shadowy leader of the Islamic State group claimed to appear for the first time in five years in a video released by the extremist group's propaganda arm on Monday, acknowledging...

BATTICALOA, Sri Lanka (AP) — The leader of the Islamic State group praised the Easter suicide bombings that killed more than 250 people in Sri Lanka in a video released Monday, calling on...

AMPARA, Sri Lanka (AP) — The Latest on the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka (all times local):

11:05 p.m.

The leader of the Islamic State group has praised the attack in Sri Lanka and...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney said Tuesday she is requesting the transfer of a female member of the Islamic State extremist group to face justice for crimes against women...

BEIRUT (AP) — The Islamic State group has lost all the territory it once controlled in Iraq and Syria, but its shadowy leader and self-proclaimed "caliph" is still at large.

BEIRUT (AP) — The Islamic State group erupted from the chaos of Syria and Iraq's conflicts and swiftly did what no Islamic militant group had done before, conquering a giant stretch of territory...

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's media regulator says it's checking if the BBC violated Russian law when it quoted the leader of the Islamic State group.

Communications oversight agency Roscomnadzor said Thursday that BBC reports with statements by IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi "conveyed ideological principles of international terrorist organizations."

The agency says it's evaluating whether the segments complied with Russia's anti-extremism law. The BBC has insisted it strictly abides by Russian laws.

BAGHDAD (AP) — President Donald Trump is declaring victory over the Islamic State group in Syria, but the militants remain a deadly force, and U.S. partners warn a premature U.S. withdrawal will allow them to storm back.

The U.S. commander-in-chief made the announcement in a tweet Wednesday, using the surprise declaration to justify a sudden decision to remove all U.S. troops from Syria, a policy shift that caught lawmakers by surprise.

CAIRO (AP) — The SITE Intelligence Group says the leader of al-Qaida is urging unity among Muslims in a new 5-minute video speech.

Ayman al-Zawahri calls on Muslims everywhere — including fighters and preachers — to unite in Islamic jihad, or holy war, in the video released Thursday, according to SITE. The group tracks online activity of jihadist organizations.

BEIRUT (AP) — The Islamic State group has released a new audio message, purportedly of its shadowy leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the first such recording to emerge in almost a year.

In the audio, the speaker urges followers to "persevere" and continue fighting the group's enemies everywhere. The 54-minute audio, titled "Give Glad Tidings to the Patient," was released by the extremist group's central media arm, al-Furqan Foundation, late Wednesday.

BEIRUT (AP) — Eight suspected members of the Islamic State group handed over to Lebanon recently are being questioned under the supervision of judicial authorities and they will stand trial in their home country, Justice Minister Salim Jreissati said Saturday.

Jreissati's comments came a day after Human Rights Watch said the United States should ensure no foreign IS suspects held by local allies in Syria are transferred to a country where they are at risk of torture or unfair trials.

BEIRUT (AP) — The Islamic State group says the son of its top leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed fighting Syrian government forces.

The announcement of the death of the al-Baghdadi's young son appeared on the group's social media accounts late Tuesday. It included a picture of a young boy carrying a rifle and identified him as Huthaifa al-Badri.

PARIS (AP) — The United Nations' cultural agency, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq have signed an agreement to finance the reconstruction of a landmark mosque in Mosul that was blown up last year by the Islamic State group.

UNESCO announced Monday that the UAE will provide $50.4 million to finance the project, focusing on the restoration of the Al-Nouri Mosque, built in the 12th century and once famous for its leaning minaret.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — An Indonesian court sentenced an Islamic militant to nine years in prison on Monday for masterminding a double suicide bombing last year that targeted police at a bus terminal in Jakarta.

Kiki Muhammad Iqbal, 38, was among six suspected militants who were arrested days after the attack, in which two bombers blew themselves up, killing three policemen and themselves. The attack also wounded 12 people, both police and civilians.

CAIRO (AP) — The leader of the Islamic State group urged followers to burn their enemies everywhere and target "media centers of the infidels," according to an audio recording that the extremists said was by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The reclusive leader of IS, who has only appeared in public once, also vowed to continue fighting and lavished praise on his jihadis for their valor in the battlefield — despite the militants' loss of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in July.

CAIRO (AP) — The leader of the Islamic State group urged followers to burn their enemies everywhere and target "media centers of the infidels," according to an audio recording released Thursday that the extremists said was by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The reclusive leader of IS, who has only appeared in public once, also vowed to continue fighting and lavished praise on his jihadis for their valor in the battlefield — despite the militants' loss of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in July.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appears to be still alive, a top U.S. military commander said Thursday, contradicting Russia's claims that it probably killed the top counterterror target months ago.

"Do I believe he's alive? Yes," said Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, who commands the coalition forces fighting IS in Iraq and Syria, referring to al-Baghdadi.

NEW YORK (AP) — Fox News Channel on Monday clarified but didn't apologize for a weekend segment that The New York Times said falsely accused the newspaper of revealing intelligence information that enabled Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to elude capture by U.S. forces two years ago.

Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha said Fox was guilty of "sheer hypocrisy" because the network had also reported about a U.S. raid that netted valuable intelligence soon after it took place.

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Times is asking Fox News' morning show "Fox & Friends" to apologize for what the newspaper calls a "malicious and inaccurate segment" about the newspaper, intelligence leaks and the Islamic State that aired Saturday.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's announcement of victory in Mosul effectively shatters the Islamic State group's self-styled caliphate. But a complete territorial defeat will take many more months, and the extremists will likely pose a threat in Iraq, Syria and beyond for years to come.

Here is a look at the Islamic State group, the three-year war against it, and what comes next.

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — A timeline of events in the rise and fall of the Islamic State group in Iraq and Mosul.

April 2013 — Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of al-Qaida's branch in Iraq, announces the merger of his Islamic State of Iraq with al-Qaida's franchise in Syria, forming the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and expanding his reach into neighboring Syria.

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — Iraq's prime minister on Tuesday congratulated his fighters on "the big victory in Mosul" — even as fighting with Islamic State militants continued in Mosul's Old City neighborhood where Iraqi forces are about 250 meters from the Tigris River and facing increasingly fierce resistance.

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — With their control of Mosul slipping away, Islamic State militants decided to send a message of defiance: They blew up the 12th century al-Nuri Mosque, along with its famous leaning minaret.

The mosque, destroyed Wednesday night, would have been a symbolic prize in the fight for Iraq's second-largest city. It was from a pulpit in that mosque that the extremists' leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared a caliphate in the lands they had seized in Iraq and Syria in July 2014.

PARIS (AP) — The Frenchman killed when he drove a car packed with arms and explosives into a Paris police convoy in a failed attack had pledged allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State group and asked his family to remember him as a martyr, France's anti-terrorism prosecutor said Thursday.

IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — The Islamic State group destroyed Mosul's al-Nuri mosque and its iconic leaning minaret known as al-Hadba when fighters detonated explosives inside the structures Wednesday night, Iraq's Ministry of Defense said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi tweeted early Thursday that the destruction was an admission by the militants that they are losing the fight for Iraq's second-largest city.

BEIRUT (AP) — Uncertainty and confusion surrounded the fate of the head of the Islamic State group Friday as Russia announced it may have killed him in an airstrike targeting a meeting of IS leaders just outside the group's self-declared capital in Syria, but U.S. officials said there was no definitive proof of his death.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's announcement that the Islamic State group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may have been killed in a Russian airstrike in Syria in late May — if confirmed — would be a huge military coup for Moscow as a key player in Syria's civil war and strengthen its hand in future peace talks.

BEIRUT (AP) — The founder of the Islamic State group news agency was reported killed with his daughter in an airstrike last week in eastern Syria, opposition activists said Thursday.

The militant group itself has not reported the death of the Aamaq agency founder, Baraa Kadek. Activists said Kadek was close to the IS leadership, gaining their trust and reportedly meeting with the enigmatic leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Islamic State group militants have blocked the area around a highly symbolic mosque in Mosul's Old City where the group's leader made his first and only public appearance in 2014, a resident said Thursday.

The move came as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces are pushing to recapture the city's remaining pockets.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military says it has killed an Islamic State operative from Uzbekistan linked to the New Year's Eve attack on an Istanbul nightclub that killed 39 people.

The operative, Abdurakhmon Uzbeki (abdoo-rakman ooz-beki), is alleged to have been a "close associate" of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (ah-boo oh-mar ahl bahg-dahd-ee).

Central Command spokesman, Col. John Thomas, said Uzbeki was killed in a ground operation April 6 near Mayadan, in eastern Syria.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia's counterterrorism squad says it has arrested four suspected Islamic militants who were trying to establish a jihadist training camp in eastern Indonesia and who likely had links with Abu Sayyaf militants in the southern Philippines.

National Police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar said the men were arrested in several locations on the island of Java on Thursday and were connected to four militants ambushed by police on the same day near Jakarta.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia's counterterrorism squad fatally shot a suspected Islamic militant and wounded another Thursday as they tried to escape a police ambush, police said. Two other men were arrested.

Police said the four were believed to be members of Jemaah Anshorut Daulah, a network of almost two dozen Indonesian extremist groups that formed in 2015 and pledges allegiance to Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi forces battling Islamic State militants in Mosul have approached the mosque where the leader of the extremist group declared its self-styled caliphate in the summer of 2014.

Black smoke billowed from the area around al-Nuri mosque, also known as the Great Mosque, as helicopters hovered overhead and fired down. At least two large mushroom clouds were seen rising from what is believed to be suicide car bomb explosions, according to live Associated Press footage.

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:

1. ISLAMIC STATE GROUP CLAIMS ATTACK ON ISTANBUL NIGHTCLUB

It is reportedly carried out in "revenge for God's religion and in response to the orders" of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

2. FOR WHOM THE 1980S STILL HOLD RELEVANCE

Many of Donald Trump's cultural touchstones — those he'd frequently namedrop at campaign rallies and on Twitter — were at their peak in the 1980s.

NEW YORK (AP) — The SITE Intelligence Group reports that the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack in Diyarbakir, Turkey, that left nine people dead.

The U.S.-based SITE, which tracks the online activity of extremist organizations, said Friday that IS made the claim through its Amaq news agency.

Turkish authorities blamed Friday's attack, which killed two police officers and seven civilians, on Kurdish militants.

BAGHDAD (AP) — The Latest on the offensive by Iraqi forces and their allies to recapture the city of Mosul from the Islamic State group (all times local):

9:30 p.m.

The White House says it's aware of the tape released by the leader of the Islamic State group urging followers to keep up the fight for Mosul, but says no propaganda can change the reality that the militants continue to lose ground week after week.

IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — The shadowy leader of the Islamic State group has released a new message urging his followers to keep up the fight for Mosul as they defend the city against a major offensive aimed at routing the militants from their last urban stronghold in Iraq.

BAGHDAD (AP) — The shadowy leader of the Islamic State group released a new message urging followers to keep up the fight for Mosul as they defend the city against a major offensive aimed at routing the militants from their last urban stronghold in Iraq.

Here is a look at the main developments on the 17th day of the Mosul Offensive:

"This is an epic game. It's epic. I can't believe we were able to do it — 108 years in the making. We did it." — World Series MVP Ben Zobrist after the Chicago Cubs beat the Cleveland Indians 8-7 in 10 innings in Game 7, winning their first title since 1908.

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:

1. NO MORE BILLY GOAT, NO MORE BARTMAN, NO MORE BLACK-CAT CURSES

Ending more than a century of flops, futility and frustration, the Chicago Cubs won their first World Series title since 1908, outlasting Cleveland 8-7 in 10 innings in Game 7.

2. EARLY VOTING: TIGHTER RACE, BUT STILL GOOD SIGNS FOR CLINTON