The Syrian government plans to release another batch of members of the now-dissolved Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from prison on Friday, a senior security official said Thursday.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein and the newly appointed US charge d'affaires in Baghdad, Steven Fagin, have discussed government efforts to establish a state monopoly on weapons, Hussein’s office said on Thursday.

A Baghdad criminal court on Thursday sentenced three men to 15 years in prison under Iraq's anti-terrorism law for launching Katyusha rockets at Camp K1 in Kirkuk province, where French coalition troops and Iraqi counter-terrorism forces were stationed.

Syria on Thursday said it has secured domestic wheat self-sufficiency and has received and stored two million and 750 thousand tons, according to state-owned Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), as wheat farmers cite delays in payments from the transitional government.

Iraq's General Directorate of Narcotics Affairs seized one kilogram of hallucinogenic mushrooms in a joint operation with security forces in the Kurdistan Region’s Sulaimani province, a spokesperson told Rudaw on Thursday, noting that the seizure is the first of its kind for this specific contraband in the country.

Hundreds descended on the streets of the Kurdish-majority city of Kobane in northeast Syria (Rojava) to protest a Syrian government decision that limited Kurdish-language instruction to three classes a week and cancelled full Kurdish-medium education.