BBC News with Zoe Diamond.
Sunni militants in Iraq have mounted an assault on the country's largest oil refinery in Baiji. There are conflicting reports over the attack as Richard Galpin reports from Baghdad.
The attack began in the early hours of the morning with the militants reportedly firing mortars and machine guns. A source told the BBC that an army helicopter responded to the attack firing rockets, one of which hit a large oil storage tank setting it on fire. He said the militants were now in control of the area. The spokesman from the Oil Ministry in Baghdad said he did not know who controlled the refinery, adding that if it were to close down it would affect power supplies in the country. But senior security sources insist the refinery is still fully under their control and that they had killed many militants in the fighting there.
Elsewhere Iraqi security forces have launched limited air strikes as they fought Sunni militants for control of the northern approaches to Baghdad. In the last hour Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has appealed to Iraqis to unite against Sunni militants who, he said, were killing hundreds of people and destroying the country. He insisted the people of Iraq would not be defeated.
They are in a country that actually strives, you know, on defeating sectarianism and marginalization. The Iraq is united with, eh, Sunni, Shiite, Kurds and Arabs.
The Iranian president has said that Tehran would not hesitate to protect Shiite shrines in Iraq. Sebastian Usher reports.
This is the clearest sign so far that Iran is prepared to take military actions in Iraq to stop the advance of Sunni Jihadists if they threaten Shiite and by extension Iranian interests there. Tehran is already providing military strategy and advice to the Shiite-led government in Baghdad. President Rouhani's pledged to protect the holy Shiite shrines in Iraq as at least partly a response to threats by the Jihadist group ISIS to destroy those sites. Any such attacks could trigger all-out civil war with Iraqi Shiites. But other Sunni militants in Iraq have so far distanced themselves from the Jihadists' most inflammatory rhetoric.
A bomb has exploded in northeastern Nigeria at a venue where football fans were watching a World Cup match killing at least 20 people. Witnesses say a suicide bomber in a tricycle taxi detonated the explosives at Damaturu in Yobe state. A medical worker told the BBC that many other victims had suffered serious injuries.
There are so many injured people that I couldn't count them all. But the military and police trucks that brought them in have made four return trips so far ferrying them in. And all of them are young men or children. No women among them. Their injuries are indescribable. One had his hand blown off. It was all so horrific.
BBC News.
The United States has carried out a drone strike in Pakistan aimed at a target in the north Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan border. Local reports say six people were killed. At the weekend, the Pakistani army launched a major offensive including air strikes aimed at eliminating foreign and Pakistani militants in the region.
The Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has said that those who kidnapped three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank last week were trying to destroy the Palestinians. Mr. Abbas said that Palestinian officials were working with Israel to try to ensure the safe return of the teenagers. Israel has widened its hunt for the teenagers who went missing last Thursday. It's rearrested more than 50 Palestinians who were freed in 2011.
China's top foreign affairs official is in Vietnam for the first high-level talks between the two countries since China stationed an oil rig in contested waters last month. Celia Hatton reports from Beijing.
China's top diplomat Yang Jie-chi admitted to reporters that China and Vietnam are experiencing difficulties. He vowed to hold friendly discussions with his counterpart in Hanoi in hopes of strengthening ties, though the first round of the two-day talks ended with both sides restating their entrenched positions. Mr. Yang is the most senior official to visit Vietnam since China toed a deep-sea oil rig into a contentious section of the South China Sea last month. The positioning of the Chinese rig has led to naval clashes with Vietnam and anti-China riots in Vietnam that killed five Chinese citizens.
The authorities in Sri Lanka have lifted a curfew in areas affected by clashes between hard-lined Buddhists and minority Muslims in the south of the country. Thousands of people, mostly Muslims, are still staying in camps and Mosques where they've taken refuge following the violence which has killed four people and wounded around 80 others since Sunday. Officials say they've arrested nearly 50 people in connection with the attacks.