BBC News with Jerry Smit.
In their biggest defensive so far against Islamic State militants, Iraqi troops and their Shia militia alliance are gaining the upper hand in the city of Tikirt, much of which is now in Iraqi government hands as Ahmed Maher reports.
“Iraqi army soldiers and their alliance have made it into Tikrit. They are hoisting both the national flag and the flags of Shia Islam on their Humvees. It took them nearly two weeks to enter the city, they are still held back in the center of Tikirt by roadside bombs and booby-trapped cars. The visit by top army generals on the battlefield is not only a show of force, but also gives the very troops a big boost and their plan to recapture the entire city.”
BBC News has spoken to some of the British nationals who have traveled to northern Syria to join Kurdish forces in their fight against Islamic State militants. Two of the men a former soldier and a city trader fought alongside the exeunt marine Konstandinos Erik Scurfield who was killed last week. This fighter Jim, a former teacher explains why he is fighting.
“...One of the particular thing for me was seeing the photo of an ISIS fighter holding up a head of a woman.”
The World Health Organization says the current break of Ebola in west Africa is now known to have killed more 10,000 people in the three worst affected countries. The organization said the fight against the disease was going in the right direction but warned more needed to be done to end the worst outbreak of Ebola the world has ever witnessed. The virus appears suddenly entrenched in parts of Guinea and Sierra leone.
The US attorney general Erica Holder has described the recent shooting of two police officers in the racially-charged town city of Ferguson in Missouri as a heinous and cowardly attack. The officers were wounded as protesters rallied outside the police headquarters to celebrate the resignation of Ferguson’s police chief. The unrest in subsequent protests in the city begun after a white officer shot dead an unarmed black man in last August. Our reporter Laura Trevelyan is there.
“I am standing right outside the police station where the two officers were shot. They have been released from the hospital although one has a bullet lodged just behind his ear. The police have been searching nearby homes for the suspects. They have taken some people into custody for questioning although no one has yet been arrested. Meanwhile tension’s here in Ferguson are all running high. People are anticipating more protests tonight in the wake of this gazing justice department report which said that there was a culture of racial bias from the police towards African American residents here.”Laura Trevelyan.
World News from the BBC.
Sixty two people, including 35 children, are now known to have died in torrential rains in the Angolan port city of Lobito. The State News Agency said that in some places flood water raised 3 meters, destroying dozens of houses. Rescuer worker are searching for survivals. Large parts of Angola have been hit by heavy rain since January including the capital Luanda.
Islamic state appears to have accepted the pledge of allegiance from Nigerian militant group Boko Haram. The group has released an audio statement in which a man who claimed to speak for its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi welcomed what he called the allegiance of our brothers. He said the aim of establishing a caliph would be expanded to west Africa and described the development as good news. The message hasn’t been independently verified.
Scientists at NASA say they have further compelling evidences that largest moon in the solar system has a salty ocean beneath its icy crust, raising the prospect that life must exist on it. Their conclusions followed an analysis of changes in the Ganymede colorful aurorals recorded by the Hubble space telescope.
The much-loved British author Sir Terry Pratchett has died. He was 66 and been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Nick looks back his life.
“Terry Pratchett’s Discworld filled 40 novels and a dozen other books, a magnificent comic creation would start as a faction of paperty of fantasy novels and became a vast rambling set on modern life. He was a press officer for central electricity generating board when he wrote the first Discworld book in 1983 and by the 1990s he was the UK’s bestselling fiction writer selling 3 million copies a year. Then in 2007, he was diagnosed with the rare form of Alzheimer. Alzheimer’s patient gradually lose their sense of themselves. In Terry Pratchett good life died slowly and very publicly and a special tragedy in a man who was once so brilliant.”