Reuters wrote Iraq's Defence Ministry said on Wednesday the second most senior member of Islamic State had been killed in a coalition air strike on a mosque where he was meeting with other militants in the north of the country.

"Based on accurate intelligence, an air strike by the coalition forces targeted the second in command of IS, Abu Alaa al-Afari," the ministry said in a statement on its website.

Abu Alaa al-Afari, whose real name is Abdul Rahman Mustafa Mohammed, is an ethnic Turkmen from the town of Tel Afar in northwestern Iraq, and is thought to be second in command of Islamic State after self-proclaimed caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

On its website, the defense ministry posted footage of the air strike on the "Martrys Mosque" in the village of al-Iyadhiya near Tel Afar, where Afari was a teacher and well-known preacher, according to a local official who asked to remain anonymous.

There was no way to independently confirm the defense ministry statement, and the Iraqi government has previously announced the death of Islamic State militants only for them to resurface alive.

Reuters wrote American special operations forces killed a senior Islamic State leader in a raid in Syria, U.S. officials said on Saturday, an operation that appeared to mark a departure from Washingtons strategy of relying mostly on a bombing campaign to target militant leaders there.

President Barack Obama ordered the overnight operation that killed Abu Sayyaf, identified as an Islamic State commander who helped manage the groups black-market sales of oil and gas to raise funds, U.S. officials said. His wife, Umm Sayyaf, was captured and was being held in Iraq.

U.S. special forces based in Iraq flew by helicopter on a mission aimed at capturing Abu Sayyaf in al-Amr in eastern Syria, U.S. officials said. One official said the elite Delta Force was used in the mission, and that UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft were involved.

Abu Sayyaf was killed during the course of the operation when he engaged U.S. forces, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said.

About a dozen Islamic State fighters were also killed in the raid, two U.S. officials said. One official said enemy forces fired at the U.S. aircraft and there was hand-to-hand combat during the raid.

No U.S. forces were killed or wounded during the operation, Carter said.

Reuters wrote Islamic State fighters tightened their grip on the historic Syrian city of Palmyra on Thursday and overran Iraqi government defenses east of Ramadi, the provincial capital that they seized five days earlier.

The twin successes not only pile pressure on Damascus and Baghdad but throw doubt on a U.S. strategy of relying almost exclusively on air strikes to support the fight against Islamic State.

The White House said the seizure of Palmyra was a setback for U.S.-led coalition forces in their fight against Islamic State. But spokesman Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama disagreed with Republicans demanding he send ground troops to fight the Islamist militants.

Islamic State said in a statement posted by followers on Twitter it was in full charge of Palmyra, including its military bases, marking the first time it had taken a city directly from the Syrian military and allied forces.

The U.N. human rights office in Geneva said a third of Palmyra's 200,000 residents may have fled the fighting in the past few days.

Reuters wrote Islamic State fighters killed at least 145 civilians in an attack on the Syrian town of Kobani and a nearby village, in what a monitoring group described on Friday as one of the worst massacres carried out by the hardline group in Syria.

The Kurdish YPG militia described the attack on Kobani as "a suicide mission" rather than an attempt to capture the town at the Turkish border. It said it fought intermittent gun battles on Friday with Islamic State fighters holed up in three locations.

The attack on the predominantly Kurdish town of Kobani and the nearby village of Brakh Bootan marked the biggest single massacre of civilians by Islamic State in Syria since it killed hundreds of members of the Sunni Sheitaat tribe last year, Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Observatory, said.

He said 146 civilians had been killed. The YPG spokesman said at least 145 had died in the assault launched by a group of Islamic State fighters estimated to number in the dozens.

"The Daesh attack was a suicide mission. Its aim wasn't to take the city but to create terror," spokesman Redur Xelil said, using an Arabic name for the group.

The assault included at least three suicide car bombs. The dead included the elderly, women and children.

RT wrote A contingent of teens and boys shot 25 Syrian troops dead at a UNESCO world heritage site in Palmyra, a video published by a group affiliated with the Islamic State reportedly shows. A crowd of men and children can be seen watching the mass killing.

The video shows over two dozens Syrian soldiers loyal to Syrias President Bashar Assad brutally murdered by adolescent executioners in a Roman-era amphitheater in the city of Palmyra, located in the Syrian desert, according to reports.

The execution is said to have taken place shortly after the Islamic State (IS, previous ISIS/ISIL) captured the historical city on May 21. The UN human rights office said that one-third of Palmyras 200,000 residents fled the city following the takeover.

In the video, Syrian soldiers are seen kneeling in green and brown military uniforms on the stage of the amphitheater stage just before being shot dead from behind by the young militants, according to reports.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, was the first to report on the video. Their report was released on May 27, less than a week after IS gained control over the city, though the exact date of the alleged killings is unknown.

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Why did 'Jihadi John' flee Islamic State?
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British terrorist 'Jihadi John,' one of the most well-known members of ISIS, has reportedly fled the terrorist group, fearing for his life.
By Shontee Pant, Staff JULY 27, 2015
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British terrorist Jihadi John has reportedly left the Islamic State (aka ISIS) group, fearing for his life after being identified six months earlier as a Kuwaiti-born Londoner from a well-to-do family.

Jihadi John left because the terrorist organization might drop him "like a stone or worse if they feel he is no longer of any use to them," according to a source for the British news outlet, the Daily Express.

Born Mohammed Emwazi, he initially gained international notoriety both personally, and for the terrorist organization, after a video was released by Islamic State in August 2014, showing him beheading American journalist James Foley.