Israel has closed the Hebron region and partially sealed Gaza Strip crossing points as it searches for three Israeli teenagers, in a move condemned by a Palestinian rights group as “collective punishment”.

Pakistani fighter jets have carried out air strikes against militant hideouts in the north-west of the country.

The voting process in the second round of Afghanistan’s presidential election has ended with less voters having turned out compared to the first round.

The lightning offensive that has seen Al-Qaeda-inspired fighters drive government security forces out of some of northern Iraq’s key cities has left the U.S.

Iraqi army helicopters fired rockets on one of the largest mosques in the city of Tikrit on Friday, local officials and witnesses said.

Hundreds of Pakistani families have fled from a surge of fighting between Pakistani government forces and militants into neighbouring Afghanistan, an Afghan government official said on Friday.

Militants from the extremist Islamist State of Iraq and Syria on Wednesday seized the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit, a day after the country’s second-largest city Mosul fell under their control.

An Israeli air strike has hit the northern Gaza Strip and killed one Palestinian and wounded two others, emergency services have said.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has asked parliament to declare a state of emergency after the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) assumed full control of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city on Tuesday.

A security academy at Karachi’s airport came under attack on Tuesday, less than 48 hours after an all-night siege by Taliban gunmen at Pakistan’s busiest airport that killed more than 30 people.