Homeland Security News

Two U.S. citizens were released in Yemen by Houthi rebels battling the government there, the State Department confirmed Saturday.

The release caps a week of turmoil in the war-torn country where the U.S. military has been drawn directly into the conflict. The Americans, who were not named, have left Yemen, the State Department said.

"We welcome reports that two U.S. citizens who had been detained in Yemen were released and have arrived safely in Oman," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement.

Toner expressed gratitude to the government of Oman for securing the Americans' release.

"We recognize the‎ humanitarian gesture by the Houthis in releasing these U.S. citizens," Toner said. "We call for the immediate and unconditional release of any other U.S. citizens who may still be held."

Read more:  USA Today

A suspected suicide bomber killed three police officers and wounded at least eight people in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep on Sunday during a police raid on what was thought to be an Islamic State safehouse, security sources and medics said.

Police pursued a vehicle believed to be carrying explosives to the house, where a group of Syrian nationals were thought to be sheltering, and raided it, the security sources said. Gaziantep lies around 40 km (25 miles) from the Syrian border.

Four of those wounded were Syrians while some of the others were police officers, hospital sources said.

Turkey launched an incursion into Syria in August in support of Syrian rebels to try to push Islamic State from its border. The rebels said on Sunday they had captured the village of Dabiq from the jihadist group, a stronghold where it had promised to fight a final, apocalyptic battle with the West.

A suicide bomber suspected of links to Islamic State killed more than 50 people, many of them children, at a Kurdish wedding in Gaziantep in August. It was the latest in a series of attacks by the radical Islamists in Turkey.

Source:  Reuters

Turkish-backed rebels have captured the symbolically important Syrian town of Dabiq from the Islamic State group, rebel commanders and monitors say.

The rebels took Dabiq after "IS members withdrew", the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The small northern town holds great value for IS because of a prophecy of an apocalyptic battle, and features heavily in its propaganda.

The advance on Dabiq is part of a wider offensive by Syrian rebel groups.

Ahmed Osman, the commander of the Sultan Murad rebel group, told Reuters news agency on Sunday morning that the group had also recaptured the neighbouring village of Soran.

Read more:  BBC News