The body of a Palestinian youth was discovered in a Jerusalem forest on Wednesday amid fears that the missing Palestinian teen had been killed as part of reprisals following the deaths of three abducted Israeli teens.

Jihadist fighters in Syria and Iraq under the banner of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have announced the establishment of a new Islamic “caliphate”, Australia’s News.com reported.

The Israeli air force has launched a series of air raids on the Gaza Strip, hours after the bodies of three settlers were found in the occupied West Bank.

Iraqi forces launched an airborne assault on Tikrit on Thursday with commandos flown into a stadium in helicopters, at least one of which crashed after taking fire from rebels who have seized northern cities.

Along with preparations being made for Ramadan in Mecca’s Grand Mosque, around 950,000 copies of the Holy Qur’an in 72 different languages are going to be made available for the visitors.

As the World Cup tournament goes on, many Brazilians converted to Islam increasing the population of Muslims in Brazil.

Lebanese security officials have reported an explosion at a hotel in central Beirut during a botched security raid.

Several press reports have claimed that rebels loyal to the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have captured and executed Raouf Abdel Rahman who sentenced former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to death in 2006.

An Egyptian court has confirmed death sentences for 183 Muslim Brotherhood supporters accused of a 2013 attack on a police station, lawyers say.

In the past two weeks, news of the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria, known as ISIS, taking over Mosul, Northern Iraq, then Tikrit – Saddam Hussein’s hometown – has shocked the world. The group, making its largest land grab since its inception, is worsening the region’s most alarming problem: water scarcity.