In the buildup to a long-awaited offensive on the city of Mosul, Kurdish forces are seizing new territory in northern Iraq that they say will become part of their autonomous region. The moves are further straining relations between the Kurds and the Baghdad government and Shiite militias, all ostensibly allies in the fight against the Islamic State group.

Just east of Mosul, Kurdish engineering teams on a recent day were laying down a 3-meter wide, 20-kilometer long trench and 2-meter high berms, marking the new front line after recapturing the village of Qarqashah and neighboring hamlets from IS earlier this month.

On the day he was sworn into office, President Rodrigo Duterte went to a Manila slum and exhorted residents who knew any drug addicts to "go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful."

Two months later, nearly 2,000 suspected drug pushers and users lay dead as morgues continue to fill up. Faced with criticism of his actions by rights activists, international bodies and outspoken Filipinos, including the top judge, Duterte has stuck to his guns and threatened to declare martial law if the Supreme Court meddles in his work.

Iran's intelligence minister says security officers have investigated more than 1,500 young men at risk of being recruited by the extremist Islamic State group.

The semi-official Tasnim news agency on Friday quoted Mahmoud Ali as saying that his department has summoned for questioning, detained or talked with the young people to stop them from joining IS.

Yemen's rebel-run news agency says airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition have killed 11 civilians and wounded others in the northern city of Saada.

The agency, SABA, which is under control of the Shiite rebels known as Houthis, reported on Friday that the airstrikes destroyed two houses located in the district of Baqam in the city of Saada — a Houthi stronghold.

Hungary's prime minister says the country will build a new, "massive" fence on its southern borders to defend against a possible surge in the number of migrants.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who earlier said migrants were "poison," said Friday on state radio that there may soon be a "greater need for security" and the fortified barrier would be able to stop "several hundreds of thousands of people," if needed. He did not say when construction could start.

Six Indonesian provinces have declared states of emergency as forest fires blanketed a swath of Southeast Asia in a smoky haze.

Singapore's air quality deteriorated to unhealthy levels on Friday as winds blew smoke from fires on Sumatra across the city-state and into southern Malaysia.

An official says nearly 3,000 people have been evacuated in India's remote northeast after an artificial lake created by a landslide threatened their lives even as flood water levels stabilized in the worst-hit areas of the north.

Rakesh Ranjan, a National Disaster Response Force official, says the rescue this week was in the mountainous Mangan district of Sikkim state.

Kuwait's Interior Ministry says a government employee has been arrested for spreading Islamic State ideology and hacking social media pages of "some friendly and sister countries."

The ministry identified the man arrested as Osman Zebn Naif, born in 1990, and said he confessed to being part of the Cyber Army of the Khilafah. That's a known group of hackers supporting the extremists in Iraq and Syria.

A poll in Germany suggests that a large majority favors at least a partial ban on the face-covering veils used by some Muslim women.

Security officials from Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative bloc last week proposed a ban on wearing the burqa and other face-covering veils in public schools, courts, while driving and in some other situations. However, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere opposes a blanket ban on wearing such veils in public, pointing to constitutional problems.

A Saudi newspaper is reporting that an Egyptian man has been sentenced to six years in prison on charges of spying for Iran, attempting to disturb public order, violating the kingdom's labor laws and communicating with a sorcerer to bewitch his employer.