IS takes control of half Iraqi town near Jordan

The insurgents attacked the town of Rutba on Sunday in a bid to relieve pressure on the northern city of Mosul where they are fighting off an offensive by the Iraqi army and Kurdish fighters backed by the US led coalition. They spread the area under their control in overnight fighting, the sources added.

The Iraqi army and Sunni tribal fighters remained in control of the other half, at the town's entrances from the express highway that links Baghdad and the western border. The army was bringing in reinforcements, they said.

Rutba is in western Anbar province, a hotbed for the Sunni insurgency against the Shi'ite-led government and the US forces that overthrew Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, in 2003.

Twelve people were killed in an attack in Mandera in northeast Kenya, on Tuesday, by suspected Islamist militants from the Somalia's al Shabaab group, media quoted police as saying, the latest strike in an area by the militants. Media reports said, 12 people were killed in the attack on a guest house. 

Spanish police, have arrested two Morrocan imams on the island of Ibiza accused of supporting the Islamist militant group Islamic State publicly and through their social media profiles, the Interior Ministry said.

The two men, 31 and 35, began expressing their support for the group in 2012 and have since been posting pro-militant material, such as links to videos and publications, on the internet, the ministry added. This year, Spanish police have arrested 49 people, including the two men detained on October 25, with suspected connections to Islamist militants.