Violence against LGBT people

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants battled Syrian rebel forces in a Damascus neighborhood Aug. 31, bringing the jihadists closer than ever to the center of the capital, a monitoring group said.

A suicide bomber in an explosives-rigged vehicle killed two Iraqi army generals north of the Anbar provincial capital Ramadi on Aug. 27, a military spokesman said.

Linda Specht, the new U.S. consul general to Adana, a southern Turkish province, has started her post, replacing John L. Espinoza, who had held the position for the last three years. 

Specht was appointed from Washington and was the deputy director at the office of Pakistan Affairs.

Police have detained two Syrians for selling historic coins called "sikke" from the Ottoman era in Istanbul, while 500 historic coins as well as modern currency were also confiscated in the raid.

The two Syrians, identified as M.B. and K.B., were detained after police raided a house in Istanbul's Esenyurt district after a tip was shared that historic coins were being smuggled. 

US-led forces conducted 16 air strikes in Iraq and seven in Syria on August 8 against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) targets, the US military said. 

Reuven Rivlin, the president of Israel, is an outspoken man, but he knows when to hold his fire. He condemned the killing of an 18-month-old Palestinian child in an arson attack in the West Bank by suspected Jewish settlers last Friday as "terrorism", but he did not say that the suspects were from the extreme wing of the "national religious tribe". 

Turkey is not eager to embrace a recently-proposed Russian initiative to form a regional alliance to battle the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). 

Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tanju Bilgiç said any other plan regarding ISIL other than the ongoing international coalition effort is not on Turkey?s agenda. 

The police have found and interviewed a persons suspected of attacking Dajana Pospis in Novi Sad on Tuesday, the N1 broadcaster is reporting.

Dajana Pospis, who was previously a man called Dolf Pospis, is undergoing sex change medical procedures. Pospis is a former member of the banned neo-Nazi group Nacionalni Stroj.

The U.N. has expressed deep concern over attacks and discriminatory acts on Turkey?s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, while also calling for active measures to be taken in an effort to combat homophobic and transphobic violence and discrimination. 

Albanian police on Wednesday arrested Baki Coku, saying he was the subject of an international warrant issued by Interpol Roma and was suspected of belonging to an organization "whose goal was to carry terrorist acts.

"His arrest was carried out with the aim of extradition [to Italy] and was part of an international anti-terror operation," the Albanian police added.