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DENVER  — Gathered under the fluorescent lights of an austere Denver mosque, a group of parents stared at a photo projected on a wall in front of them.

It showed a knife, a gun and a phone. Some seemed perplexed.

"You can kill someone with a gun or a knife, but a phone might get me 10 more recruits," said Seamus Hughes, of the National Counterterrorism Centre, who traveled from Washington, DC to speak to parents and Muslim leaders about the ease with which their children can be lured to terror on the Internet.

Thursday night's meeting was the first formal encounter between federal counterterrorism officials and Denver's tight-knit Muslim community since authorities last month stopped three suburban Denver girls from flying to Syria to join Islamic State extremists. It's part of a joint effort by Muslim leaders and federal law enforcement around the country to stop kids from going overseas to fight in purported holy wars.

"I want to build a relationship with your community," said Thomas Ravenelle, special agent in charge of the Denver FBI office. "We don't want to be talking with you for the first time the next time children go overseas."

As terror recruiting becomes easier in an increasingly connected world, there have been alarming cases of young Americans joining Islamic extremists across the county. Law enforcement and community leaders in Minneapolis, for example, have been working together for years after authorities learned in 2008 that small groups of young Somali men had gone back to their homeland to fight with the Al Qaida-linked terror group Al Shabab. A handful of others have travelled to Syria in the last year take up arms with militants, and outreach efforts ramped up.

In Colorado, three girls from east African immigrant families, ages 15 to 17, were radicalised online, swapping messages with top Islamic State recruiters on Twitter and other social media sites.

Qusair Mohamedbhai, general counsel for the Colorado Muslim Society, who helped organise the meeting, said it was important to ensure people know what resources they have, and education efforts would continue. FBI officials planned to meet with school leaders and others as part of the plan.

The meeting was similar to those held several years ago in Denver after concerns arose that young men were returning to Somalia to join Al Shabab. Worried parents contacted officials with similar fears after the girls' trip, US Attorney John Walsh said. That spawned the latest series of meetings, which he said were designed to help families protect themselves.

"The adults that are here must take this message back to the youth," said Abdur Rahim Ali, imam of the Northeast Denver Islamic Centre. "We have to be vigilant and consistent in educating the youth. It takes community effort."

SANAA — Yemeni Shiite Muslim Houthi fighters backed by government forces drove the local wing of Al Qaeda from one of its last strongholds in central Yemen on Friday in intense fighting that killed at least 35 people, tribal sources said.

The Houthis' Ansarullah movement has become the main political force in Western-allied Yemen since capturing Sanaa in September and then pushing south and west into the Sunni Muslim heartland of Al Bayda province, where Ansar Al Sharia has allied itself with local tribes.

Yemen has been in turmoil since 2011, to the dismay of neighbouring Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, and of the Western powers who want to prevent instability in the Arabian peninsula threatening their crude supplies or giving Al Qaeda a base for overseas attacks.

Tribal sources said the Houthis had met stiff resistance as they pushed towards the village of Khobza district using Katuysha rockets and heavy artillery.

They said at least 25 Houthis and 10 Ansar Al Sharia and tribal fighters had died in the fighting, which began on Thursday afternoon. Ansar Al Sharia and its allies withdrew to Yakla district, on the border with Maarib province.

The fighting has given Yemen's strife a sectarian slant as Sunni tribes have lined up with Ansar Al Sharia, the local affiliate of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which views Shiites such as the Houthis as heretics.

On Thursday, the Houthis, who had for years complained of discrimination against their northern homeland, endorsed a new government in Sanaa to replace the one they had forced to step down.

Last month, an Al Qaeda suicide bomber killed at least 47 people, mostly members of the Houthi group, as they prepared to stage a rally in Sanaa.

BRISBANE, Australia — A deal could be reached this month between world powers and Iran on curbing the country's nuclear programme if there is the will in Washington and Tehran, a senior Russian diplomat said on Saturday.

In Australia for a meeting of the G20 major and developing economies, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters six world powers and Iran had never been so close to an agreement and it could be reached by a November 24 deadline.

"Therefore, from [November] 18 to 24 there is enough time for such decisions to be taken," he said.

"But there is no guarantee that these decisions will be taken in those capitals where there are the biggest problems with current solutions, I mean, Washington and Tehran."

The six powers — Russia, China, the United States, France, Britain and Germany — want to ensure Iran's nuclear programme does not enable it to build nuclear weapons, though Iran says its nuclear work is for civil needs.

Ryabkov said Moscow would continue to cooperate with Washington on Iran and Syria despite a rift in ties hours after US President Barack Obama said Moscow's actions in Ukraine were a threat to the world.

"Talks on Iran and Syria are not a tribute to fashion or momentary interests and even less so are an intention to 'please' the United States," he said.

"This cooperation meets our interest and helps to normalise the global situation, and we will keep on doing it. If it had been for other reasons, we would have folded this activity long ago."

Some officials, including from Russia, have expressed doubts a deal can be reached in the timeframe.

Ryabkov also said that after President Vladimir Putin and Obama spoke in China on the sidelines of a summit, there had been no new impulse for "the normalisation" of bilateral relations.

Ties between Moscow and Washington have plunged to lows unseen since the Cold War over Ukraine, where Russia annexed Crimea in March and is accused by the West of sending arms and soldiers to support a separatist rebellion in its east.

Moscow denies the charges and has criticised the United States for imposing sanctions on Russia over Ukraine.

"Responsibility for the stagnation in our relationship is entirely on the US side," Ryabkov said.

"The relations with the United States are in a bad condition and it will take a very long time to normalise and stabilise them," he said. "But effort is needed on both sides."

BEIRUT  — During a key battle in the rugged mountains of a northern province earlier this month, US-backed Syrian rebels collapsed before an assault by Al Qaeda fighters. Some surrendered their weapons. Others outright defected to the militants.

A detailed account of the battle in Idlib, from a series of interviews with opposition activists by The Associated Press, underscores how the moderate rebels that Washington is trying to boost to fight the Islamic State group are instead hemorrhaging on multiple fronts.

They face an escalated assault by Islamic extremists, which activists say are increasingly working together to eliminate them. At the same time, a string of assassinations has targeted some of their most powerful commanders.

"This is the end of the Free Syrian Army," said Alaa Al Deen, an opposition activist in Idlib, referring to Western-backed rebel groups. "It's the beginning of an Islamic emirate."

Thousands of rebels have died fighting the Islamic State (IS) this year, a war that has overshadowed and undermined the struggle to topple President Bashar Assad. 

Now Al Nusra Front — Al Qaeda branch in Syria, which previously was also fighting against IS — has turned on more moderate factions. Two opposition figures told AP last week that Al Nusra Front and IS have gone so far as to agree to work together against their opponents, though so far their forces have not been seen together on the ground.

Al Nusra’s pivot in part is in response to US air strikes, which have targeted the Al Qaeda branch in addition to IS militants, several activists said. Al Nusra Front has been hit three times in strikes the US has said were aimed at a secret cell of high-ranking Al Qaeda militants plotting attacks against the West. The strikes have ignited tensions between Western-backed groups and more extreme factions, who feel that the Americans are hitting everyone except Assad’s forces.

In the fighting earlier this month, Al Nusra Front drove US-backed factions almost completely out of the northwestern province of Idlib, where they had been the predominant force. During the battles, two of the strongest Western-backed forces — the Hazm Movement and the Syrian Revolutionay Front — were defeated and several other allied groups simply vanished.

The Syrian Revolutionary Front, headed by commander Jamal Maarouf, oversaw groups ranging from village-based militias to factions with hundreds of men. Around 10,000 to 20,000 fighters are estimated by activists to have been under his command.

The fighting began when a group of men in the Idlib village of Bara defected from a faction loyal to Maarouf and joined Ahrar Al Sham, an ultraconservative Islamist force.

Maarouf first sent his nephew to Bara to retrieve the men’s weapons but that mission failed. Then Maarouf ordered his fighters to surround and shell Bara, according to local journalist Muayad Zurayk, activists Mohammed Al Sayid and Alaa Al Deen, and another two activists from nearby Aleppo province.

Ahrar Al Sham asked Al Nusra Front for help, and the conflict quickly spread. Other Islamist factions, Jund Al Aqsa and Suqour Al Sham, took Al Nusra’s side.

The Hazm Movement got involved when its fighters at a checkpoint halted Al Nusra militants trying to reach the battle. Al Nusra fighters chased the Hazm men back to their stronghold, the nearby town of Khan Sunbul, which the extremists then overran. At least 65 Hazm fighters defected to the Al Qaeda branch, the activists and a high-level Syrian opposition official based in Istanbul told AP.

Within days, Maarouf’s men and Hazm fighters were routed from most of the province, most fleeing into neighbouring Aleppo. Around seven other allied factions melted away, according to three activists.

The activists identified the groups as Western-backed because they possess TOW anti-tank missiles, which they said only US-supported groups have.

Washington announced this summer that it intends to arm Syrian moderates to fight IS, but it is awaiting congressional approval. The US has only acknowledged giving non-lethal aid to rebels.

“There was hope that they might prove to be an effective force in the crackdown on the Al Qaeda presence in Syria — but that has been dashed,” said Aymenn Al Tamimi, an expert on rebel groups. “They are not strong enough.”

Western-backed groups are also being eroded in other ways. There has been a series of mysterious slayings targeting powerful rebel leaders fighting the Islamic State group.

The extremist group — and to a lesser extent Al Nusra Front — are likely behind most of the killings, but Assad’s government has also increased pressure on moderate rebels since the start of the US-led air campaign, said Torbjorn Soltvedt, Mideast analyst at risk advisory firm Maplecroft.

Among the recent apparent targeted killings:

— A suicide attack killed more than two dozen officials from the ultraconservative Ahrar Al Sham group, including its leader Hassan Aboud, while they were holding a meeting in Idlib province.

— A government air strike on the northern town of Deir Sunbul, believed to be targeting Maarouf, killed his daughter.

— A car bombing in a Damascus suburb wounded Ahmad Taha, the leader of the Umma Army, and killed his son and nephew.

— A shooting in another Damascus suburb killed the commander of Fatah Al Sham, Fahd Mahmoud Al Kurdi.

— A bombing in Aleppo killed Omar Moussa, a Hazm Movement commander.

On October 23, a gunman shot dead Ayman Abdul-Rahman, commander of the Liwa Tawheed group, inside an Internet café in the northern town of Hreitan, then walked out to a waiting getaway car, said Ibrahim Saeed, an Aleppo activist. Abdul-Rahman was one of the first commanders in the rebel Free Syrian Army to fight against IS.

Now many rebel commanders are laying low, Saeed said. “We don’t know where they live or where they go or where they sleep.”

DUBAI — The United Arab Emirates has formally designated the Muslim Brotherhood and local affiliates as terrorist groups, state news agency WAM reported on Saturday citing a Cabinet decree.

The Gulf Arab state has also designated Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State, whose fighters are battling Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, as terrorist organisations, along with other Shiite militant groups such as the Houthi movement in Yemen.

Saturday's move echoes a similar move by Saudi Arabia in March and could increase pressure on Qatar whose backing for the group has sparked a row with fellow Gulf monarchies.

It also underscores concern in the US-allied oil producer about political Islam and the influence of the Brotherhood, whose Sunni Islamist doctrines challenge the principle of dynastic rule.

The UAE has designated Al Islah group, which is a local Islamist group banned in the UAE for its alleged link to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, as a terrorist group.

UAE authorities have cracked down on members of Al Islah and jailed scores of Islamists convicted of forming an illegal branch of the Brotherhood. Al Islah denies any such link, but says it shares some of the Brotherhood's Islamist ideology.

In an unprecedented public move, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates recalled their ambassadors to Qatar in March, accusing Doha of failing to abide by an agreement not to interfere in one another's internal affairs.

So far efforts by members of the GCC, an alliance that also includes Oman and Kuwait, to resolve the dispute have failed.

The three states mainly fell out with Qatar over the role of Islamists, including the Muslim Brotherhood. Gulf officials say the three want Qatar to end any support for the Brotherhood.

Qatar says it backs all Arabs, not just Brotherhood members.

Qatar's emir on Tuesday publicly invited fellow Gulf rulers to a Doha summit, apparently seeking to forestall what diplomats say is an attempt by some peers to move it elsewhere in protest at what they see as an Islamist tilt in his foreign policy.

KIRKUK, Iraq — Iraqi forces broke the Islamic State (IS) group's months-long siege of the country's largest oil refinery Saturday as America's top officer flew in to discuss expanding the war against the jihadists.

Completely expelling IS fighters from the area around the refinery would be another significant achievement for Baghdad, a day after pro-government forces retook the nearby town of Baiji.

"Iraqi forces... reached the gate of the refinery," Salaheddin province Governor Raad Al Juburi told AFP.

Three military officers confirmed that Iraqi forces had reached the refinery, 200 kilometres north of Baghdad, where security forces have been surrounded and under repeated attack since June.

This new success for government forces came a day after they recaptured nearby Baiji, the largest town to be retaken since IS-led militants swept across Iraq's Sunni Arab heartland in June.

It also followed another victory earlier in the week in the eastern province of Diyala, where a joint operation by the army and Shiite militiamen wrested back control of the Adhaim Dam, one of the country's largest.

Top officer in Iraq 

A breakthrough preliminary deal reached on Thursday between the federal government and the autonomous Kurdish region on long-standing budget and oil disputes also raised the prospect of increased coordination in the fight against IS.

America's top military officer, chairman of the Joint-Chiefs-of-Staff General Martin Dempsey, arrived in Iraq for talks on the expanding military operations against the jihadists with Prime Minister Haidar Al Abadi and other Iraqi and American officials.

A US-led coalition is carrying out a campaign of air strikes targeting IS jihadists in both Iraq and Syria, and Washington has announced plans to increase the number of its military personnel in Iraq to up to 3,100.

Dempsey “arrived in Iraq today to visit with US troops, commanders and Iraqi leaders”, his spokesman, Colonel Ed Thomas, told AFP.

“The primary purpose of his visit is to get a first-hand look at the situation in Iraq, receive briefings and get [a] better sense of how the campaign is progressing,” Thomas said.

The United States and other governments have pledged trainers and advisers to aid Iraqi security forces in their battle against IS.

US assesses deployment sites 

American personnel are assessing deployment sites in Iraq, including Al Asad Air Base in Anbar province, a key area that stretches from the borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to the Western approach to Baghdad.

The IS jihadist group released an audio recording on Thursday purportedly of its chief, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, after rumours that coalition air strikes may have killed or wounded him.

It has had most of the initiative in recent months, but the man said to be Baghdadi seemed at pains to reassure his followers, and the lack of video in the message failed to dispel speculation he might still have been wounded.

The operation to retake Baiji began more than four weeks ago when security forces and pro-governmental fighters began advancing towards the town from the south.

Slowed by bombs the militants had planted on the way, they finally entered the town on October 31.

The huge refinery once produced 300,000 barrels a day, accounting for half of the nation’s needs in refined oil products.

It is also on the road linking the two largest cities in Iraq under jihadist control, Mosul and Tikrit.

Washington has repeatedly stated that it will not deploy “combat troops” to Iraq, but Dempsey said on Thursday that sending out advisers alongside Iraqi forces was something that “we’re certainly considering”.

As federal forces, Kurdish peshmerga fighters, Sunni tribesmen and Shiite militias battle IS on several fronts, near daily bombings take their toll.

On Saturday, a blast in an area north of Baghdad killed at least four people, a day afer at least 17 died in two explosions in northwestern neighbourhoods of the capital.

BENGHAZI — At least 340 people have been killed in fighting for Libya's second city Benghazi since the launch of a government-backed offensive against Islamist militias a month ago, medical sources said Saturday.

More than 200 of the dead have been soldiers — either members of the regular army or loyalists of controversial retired general Khalifa Haftar, the Red Crescent and hospital sources said.

But civilians are also among the casualties, caught up in the crossfire as troops battle to wrest the eastern city back from the militias that seized it in July.

All of Libya's three big cities — the capital Tripoli, third city Misrata and Benghazi — are largely under the control of Islamist-led militias.

In Benghazi, one of them — Ansar Al Sharia — is blacklisted by Washington as a terror group for its alleged role in a deadly 2012 attack on the US consulate.

Three years after dictator Muammar Qadhafi was toppled and killed in a NATO-backed revolt, Libya is awash with weapons and powerful militias, and run by rival governments and parliaments.

The internationally recognised government has set up base in the remote eastern town of Shahat and large swathes of the North African nation are beyond its control.

CAIRO — Militants shot dead five Egyptian conscripts in the Sinai Peninsula on Thursday, as the army searched for eight servicemen missing after an attack on a navy boat in the Mediterranean.

The military carried out air strikes in Sinai, killing three members of the Islamist militant group Ansar Beit Al Maqdis, security officials said.

Egypt has been hit by a wave of attacks since the army overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last year, infuriating his supporters.

In Cairo, 16 people were injured Thursday in a panicked crush on a Cairo metro train after a small bomb exploded during rush hour.

The attacks in Sinai, in which two police conscripts and three soldiers were taken out of their vehicles and shot dead, bore the hallmarks of Ansar Beit Al Maqdis, which often sets up impromptu checkpoints in the lawless peninsula.

The ambushes came a day after an assault on a navy boat wounded five servicemen and left eight lost at sea.

The military, which said late Wednesday it was still conducting search and rescue operations for those missing, has called the incident a "terrorist" attack.

But the identities and goals of the assailants remained unknown a day later.

A security official said that dozens of suspects rounded up at sea after the assault were still being interrogated.

It was not immediately clear whether they were “terrorists” or drug and weapons smugglers who use that part of the sea, he said.

Four boats used by the assailants were destroyed, according to the military.

State-owned Ahram newspaper reported that a naval patrol approached three boats which aroused suspicion and it came under fire, citing an anonymous source saying they were most likely smugglers.

It added that a protest later erupted in a Damietta village after reports that the military arrested fishermen at sea following the exchange of fire.

Militants intercept conscripts

The government is fighting an Islamist militant insurgency that has killed scores of policemen and soldiers, but such a maritime attack was a first.

The incident came days after Ansar Beit Al Maqdis pledged its allegiance to the IS jihadist group in Iraq and Syria.

Egypt’s army has launched an unprecedented crackdown in Sinai to quell the militants, razing homes along the border with Gaza to create a buffer zone with the Islamist-controlled Palestinian enclave.

One of the attacks Thursday took place at the entrance of the town of Rafah along the border with Gaza, where the army is demolishing homes to create the buffer zone.

The other occurred several kilometres to the west, in the north Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweid.

Ansar Beit Al Maqdis has spearheaded an insurgency in the peninsula that has killed scores of policemen and soldiers since the army overthrew Morsi.

It is believed to have been behind an attack on a military checkpoint last month that killed at least 30 soldiers — the deadliest such incident in years.

In a statement on Thursday, the military said it had arrested a member of Ansar Beit Al Maqdis’ decision-making council along with 25 suspected militants.

PARIS — France will decide in the coming weeks whether to send fighter jets to Jordan to strike Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq in an effort to increase the number of missions and reduce the cost, the army spokesman and officials said on Thursday.

France was the first country to join the US-led coalition in air strikes on IS insurgents in Iraq, who have also taken control of large parts of neighbouring Syria during the course of the three-year-old civil war there.

"We are thinking about a deployment in Jordan," army spokesman Gilles Jaron told reporters, adding that it was being discussed with authorities in Amman.

"It would reduce time in the air between take-off and missions above Iraq," he said.

It currently has nine fighter jets, maritime patrol aircraft, a refuelling plane at its base in the United Arab Emirates as part of its “Chammal” Iraq mission, as well as a war ship in the Gulf.

Two French diplomats said putting jets in Jordan would also help reduce costs at a time when the government is under pressure to cut spending and this week was forced to find ways to fill a 600 million euros budget gap in additional costs for overseas military operations.

“It would be quicker and save money,” said one French diplomat. “It’s in our interest to be as close to Iraq as possible.” A second source said a decision would be made this month.

France has given Iraqi peshmerga fighters weapons and training, but has ruled out carrying out air strikes in Syria.

It says it is providing military aid and training to the ramshackle Free Syrian Army in Syria, but has not given any specific details of its help.

“Between three to six Mirage jets could be deployed to Jordan,” said a military source.

Jordanian officials contacted by Reuters said they were not aware of the plans.

WASHINGTON — The United States and coalition forces are making progress in the fight against Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq and Syria, but the American people must prepare for a long and difficult struggle, Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel told Congress on Thursday.

"ISIL's advance in parts of Iraq has stalled, and in some cases been reversed, by Iraqi, Kurdish, and tribal forces supported by US and coalition air strikes," Hagel said in testimony to the House Armed Services Committee. "But ISIL continues to represent a serious threat to American interests, our allies, and the Middle East ... and wields influence over a broad swath of territory in western and northern Iraq and eastern Syria."

He used the term ISIL for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The testimony of Hagel and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the top US military officer, comes just days after President Barack Obama asked Congress for a new $5.6 billion plan to expand the US mission in Iraq and send up to 1,500 more American troops to the war-torn nation.

Obama authorised the deployment of advisory teams and trainers to bolster struggling Iraqi forces across the country, including into Iraq’s western Anbar province where fighting with IS militants has been fierce. Obama’s plan could boost the total number of American troops in Iraq to 3,100. There are currently about 1,400 US troops there, out of the 1,600 previously authorised.

Hagel said the “pressure is having an effect on potential ISIL recruits and collaborators ... striking a blow to morale and recruitment. We know that. Our intelligence is very clear on that”.

Lawmakers expressed scepticism about limiting the US deployment to advisers and trainers, with Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, arguing that “limiting our advisers to headquarters buildings will not help newly trained Iraqi and Syrian opposition forces hold terrain, much less defeat ISIL in the field. Yet the president has doubled down on his policy of ‘no boots on the ground,’ despite any advice you give him”.

In citing expert advice, McKeon offered comments from previous defence secretaries and also quoted Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, who last month told an army conference that ruling out ground forces is like telling a rival you won’t play your best players.

Hagel maintained that the US personnel will not be involved in ground combat.

Congress also must decide whether to reauthorise training and equipping of moderate Syrian rebels, an authority that expires December 11.

Lawmakers are bracing for a broader fight next year over a new authorisation to use military force to replace the post-September 11 law and the one crafted for the Iraq war 11 years ago.