Iraqi security forces say they're consolidating their positions in the city of Ramadi after fighting their way into the centre to seize a government building complex
that served as headquarters for IS fighters. Toma Fussy repots from Baghdad. The authorities will hail this week's offensive as a success against the jihadi group in
the country. But it took months to mount this ground campaign coordinated with coalition air strikes. The prime minister Haider al-Abadi said the army would soon move
to retaken the northern city of Mosul and that would be the biggest prize. But it is the largest population center under the control of IS in Iraq and the battle there
will be much tougher.
Reports from Yemen say Osama bin Laden's former bodyguard Nasser al-Bahri has died after a long illness. Youssef Taha reports. Medical sources in Yemen told the BBC that al-Bahri who was also known as Abu Jandal, died on Saturday at a hospital in Mukalla in the southern province of Hadhramaut. He was the bodyguard and driver of Osama bin Laden, the late Al-Qaeda leader when he operated from Afghanistan. He returned to Yemen at the end of 2008 following his release from the US detention center in Guantanamo. al-Bahri, who was a Yemeni national, was reputed to have been involved in military attacks during the 1990s in Bosnia, Somalia and Afghanistan.
More than 40 people are now known to have been killed by tornadoes, storm and flooding which have have disrupted much of the southern United States over the last week. Laura Becca reports from Washington. In Texas, at least 11 people were killed by powerful tornadoes with winds of up to 200 miles an hour. Hundreds of homes were reduced to rubble in seconds and the storm scattered debris including mangled cars for miles. The National Weather Service has issued tornadoes watches and warnings for Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Mississippi. Elsewhere, the warnings are for blizzard conditions. A winter storm is expected to dump up to 2 feet of snow in parts of New Mexico.
France will today open police and legal archives from the period when the country was under German occupation during the second world war. These include documents from key ministries as well as from France's provisional government after liberation. From 1940 to 1944, the Vichy region collaborated with the invading German army.
A former player in El Salvador's national football team has been shot dead. The authorities there say that Alfredo Pacheco was killed while chatting with friends at a
petrol station in the city of Santa Ana. Pacheco held more national caps than other player in El Salvador but he was banned from football in 2013 for match-fixing.
World news from the BBC.
The pro-indepence movement in the Spanish region of Catalonia is in disarray after it failed to choose a leader. Delegates from the leftist party in the alliance, the
CUP, splits over whether to support a pro-indepence administration led by the current regional president Artur Mas. If the leadership issue reminds unresolved, then a
new regional election will be called automatically.
Several hundred people have marched on the French island of Corsica, ignoring a ban on demonstrations introduced after two days of violent anti-Abrab protests. The
unrest followed a clash on Thursday in which two firefighters and a police officer were injured in a largely Arab housing estate in the capital Ajaccio.
Brazilian police are investigating allegations that 8 military policemen robbed, tortured and sexually molested 5 young men in Rio de Janeiro. The policemen were
reportedly angry about being on duty over the holiday period. Leonardo Rusha has more details. The 5 young men aged between 13 and 23 were returning from a party on the motorbikes on Friday night when they were stopped at a police road block for not wearing helmets. They say the policemen demanded extortion money to let them go. Once they realized the young men didn't have much money, they budged him, cut him with heated up knives and sexually molested them. Incidents of the extortion and abusing involving police officers were not uncommon in Rio de Janeiro but this particular incident will raise concerns 6 months before the summer Olympic.
The American painter, sculptor and prints-maker Ellsworth Kelly has died aged 92. During his formative years in Paris, he developed a distinctive style combining solid
shapes and brilliant colors with forms drawn from everyday life. Later he moved back to his home city of New York where his work heavily influenced the development of
minimalism hardline painting and pop art.