A powerful ethnic armed group fighting Myanmar’s military government in the country’s western state of Rakhine is claiming to have seized a town near the Bangladesh border, marking the latest victory for foes of the country’s military government. The state’s Muslim Rohingyas, targets of deadly army-directed violence in 2017, appear to have been the main victims of fighting in the town of Buthidaung, where the Arakan Army claims to have chased out forces of the military government. Information about the situation could not be verified independently, with access to the internet and mobile phone services in the area mostly cut off. The Arakan Army is the military wing of the Rakhine ethnic movement, which seeks autonomy from Myanmar’s central government.

Police say suspected militants have bombed a girl's school in a former Pakistani Taliban stronghold, destroying the structure. However, no one was hurt in the overnight attack. Friday's attack, which was the second this month in the region, happened in South Waziristan, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said a local police official. Nobody immediately claimed responsibility, but the suspicion is likely to fall on Islamic militants and specifically the Pakistani Taliban, who had previously targeted girl's schools in the province, saying that women should not be educated.

A Turkish court has sentenced dozens pro-Kurdish politicians to between nine and 30 years in prison over deadly riots that broke out in 2014 by after Islamic State group militants besieged the Syrian border town of Kobani. The rioting by Kurds resulted in 37 deaths and left hundreds of others injured. The protests were called by pro-Kurdish politicians frustrated that the government didn't act against the IS militants. Critics say the trial was politically-motivated. The party's jailed former party chairwoman Figen Yuksekdag was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Thursday. Her co-chair Selahattin Demirtas received more than 28 years. The politicians were expected to appeal.

A radical Sunni scholar whose criticisms of Saudi Arabia’s government and the West drew praise from the late al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden should be immediately tried or released from a yearslong arbitrary detention by the kingdom. That's according to a statement Wednesday by independent experts working with the United Nations. Safar bin Abdulrahman al-Hawali had been one of the prominent voices behind the Sahwa, or “Awakening” movement, in the kingdom. It called for strictly observing hard-line Wahhabi beliefs and criticized its royal Saud family. Al-Hawali has been held without trial since 2018 as part of a wider crackdown on all dissent under King Salman and his assertive son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Anti-Islam firebrand Geert Wilders is on the verge of brokering a four-party coalition in the Netherlands six months after coming in first in national elections, opening the prospect that yet another European Union nation will veer toward the hard right weeks ahead of EU-wide elections. Wilders has said he does not expect to become prime minister himself, because he remains too extreme for his coalition partners, but his Party for Freedom would be the driving force in a four-party coalition. With hard right and populist parties now part of or leading a half dozen governments in the 27-nation bloc, they appear positioned to make gains in the June 6-9 EU polls.

The political power of Muslims is declining in the world's largest democracy. Tensions between Hindus and Muslims in India are not new, but they have gotten worse under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His ruling Bharatiya Janata Party touts a Hindu-nationalist ideology and is on the cusp of delivering him a third five-year term. As the BJP becomes more powerful — this year’s vote will be decided in June — the proportion of Muslim lawmakers in parliament and state legislatures is shrinking. One political scientist said India has gone from being a country where Muslims were largely marginalized to one where they are “actively excluded.”