By Yusri Mohamed

ISMAILIA (Reuters) - Two attacks in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula killed 33 security personnel on Friday, security sources said, in some of the worst anti-state violence since Islamist President Mohamed Mursi was overthrown last year.

The violence prompted Egypt to declare a three-month state of emergency in parts of North Sinai, where the violence took place, the state news agency reported.

The attacks are a setback for the government, which had managed over the past few months to make some progress in the struggle against an Islamist militant insurgency in the Sinai as it focuses on trying to repair the economy.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has also expressed serious concerns over militants who are thriving in the chaos of post-Gaddafi Libya and are opposed to the Cairo government.

Egypt has offered to train anti-militant, pro-government Libyan forces while it tries to contain the Sinai insurgency. Security officials say Egyptian warplanes flown by Libyan pilots recently bombed militant targets in Libya.

Thirty people were killed in the first attack in the al-Kharouba area northwest of al-Arish, near the Gaza Strip, the sources said. Military helicopters transferred the dead and wounded to Cairo. Among them were several senior officers from the Second Field Army based in Ismailia, security sources said.

The car bomb attack targeted two armoured vehicles at a checkpoint near an army installation, the sources said. They said the big explosion and high death toll were likely due to the vehicles being loaded with ammunition and heavy weapons.

Security officials gave conflicting accounts of the first attack, with one Sinai-based official saying a rocket-propelled grenade was used. More than 25 people were wounded.

Hours later, gunmen opened fire on a checkpoint in al-Arish, killing three members of the security forces, officials said.

The casualties were transported to Cairo by military helicopters, state news agency MENA reported.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either attack. Similar previous operations have been claimed by Egypt's most active militant group, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis.

Though the vast peninsula has long been a security headache for Egypt and its neighbours, the removal of President Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood brought the region new violence that has morphed into an Islamist insurgency

Security forces have been squaring off against militants who have killed hundreds of soldiers and police since the army toppled Mursi in July 2013 after mass protests against his rule.

Most attacks have been in Sinai, although militant groups have claimed responsibility over the past year for deadly bomb attacks on state installations in the Nile Delta and in Cairo.

The Brotherhood says it is peaceful and denies government claims it has links to the Sinai-based Islamist militants.

"COMBING OPERATION"

Sisi convened the National Defence Council on Friday evening for an emergency meeting in response to what his office called "a terrorist attack".

Shortly after the second attack, Sinai residents reported that phone lines and Internet services had been cut.

Security sources said the communications shutdown coincided with the beginning of a military operation east of al-Arish in response to the attacks. Apache helicopters bombed areas south of the towns of Sheikh Zuwaid and Rafah, near the Gaza Strip, which sources said were believed to be "militant hideouts."

MENA said armed forces were "conducting a large-scale combing operation" involving military helicopters and special forces troops, but gave no further details.

This is not the first time in the 16 months since Mursi's overthrow when news of a deadly attack against security forces in the Sinai has been swiftly followed by official announcements about a fresh assault on militants.

Washington provides Cairo with military aid of around $1.3 billion annually. A partial suspension of aid following Mursi's ouster was relaxed in April, when the U.S. said it would deliver 10 Apache helicopters, which have not yet arrived in Egypt.

The Pentagon said at the time that aid would help Egypt's counter-terrorism operations in the Sinai.

Six soldiers were killed on Sunday by a roadside bomb southwest of al-Arish.

Security officials have expressed concern that Islamic State militants who control parts of Iraq and Syria have forged ties with radical Islamist groups in Egypt.

Ground offensives mounted by the Iraqi army and Kurdish peshmerga forces—and bolstered by a bombardment of U.S. airstrikes—have pushed ISIS fighters from several key towns and villages in the north and south of Iraq, officials said.

Kurdish peshmerga forces said on Saturday they had recaptured key areas held by ISIS in northern Iraq, while Iraqi government forces claimed to have retaken the town of Jurf al-Sakhr, about 30 miles south of Baghdad.

"We have managed to push out Islamic State terrorists from the town of Jurf al-Sakhar today and now we are raising the Iraqi flag over the government offices," saidprovincial governor Sadiq Madloul.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi said in a Facebook post Saturday that Iraqi forces had "inflicted a strong blow to the terrorist organization ISIS."

In the north, Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces have retaken control of Zumar, a town west of the Mosul Dam, as well as surrounding villages, according to Kurdish officials.

"Zumar is controlled by the Peshmerga forces," Sheikh Ahmad Mohammad, a peshmerga commander, told Kurdish news agency Rudaw, adding, "ISIS completely evacuated it."

Hemin Hawrami, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party Foreign Relations Office, said via Twitter that peshmerga forces regained control of 10 additional villages and killed approximately 80 ISIS fighters.

Hemin Hawrami @heminhawrami Follow Breaking/ #Peshmerga controlled 10 more villages near Zummar #Mosul #Iraq. Around 80 #ISIS killed. #Kurdistan is wining. More news latter 4:02 AM - 25 Oct 2014

23 RETWEETS 12 FAVORITES

The ground forces were backed by 22 airstrikes by U.S.-led forces over the course of Friday and Saturday, primarily targeting ISIS units and positions near the Mosul Dam, the city of Fallujah and the northern city of Bayji, U.S. Central Command said.

This article was originally published athttp://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/10/isis-pummeled-by-air-and-land-in-iraq/381932/

MURSITPINAR, Turkey (AP) — Fighters from the Islamic State group launched Saturday a new offensive on the northern Syrian town of Kobani after shelling the area from their positions nearby, activists and a Kurdish official said.

Heavy fighting took place in Kobani Saturday afternoon and many mortar shells were fired into the town. Machinegun fire could be clearly heard from inside the town where black smoke was billowing.

The U.S. Central Command said an airstrike destroyed an IS artillery piece near Kobani. In the afternoon, warplanes of the U.S.-led coalition could be heard flying over Kobani.

Idriss Nassan, a senior official in Kobani, said the fighting concentrated on the southern and eastern edges of the town, also known as Ayn Arab.

"They think they can enter the city and these are just dreams," Nassan told The Associated Press by telephone adding that IS fighters have not been able to take Kobani despite more than a month of attacks.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting concentrated on the eastern side of the town, surrounded on three sides by Islamic State fighters. It added that IS fighters were spreading news in areas under their control that they will take Kobani on Saturday.

IS launched its offensive on Kobani in mid-September and captured dozens of villages before entering parts of the town. The fighting has forced 200,000 people to flee to neighboring Turkey from the fighting.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Central Command said its forces conducted more than 135 airstrikes against the militants in and around Kobani, killing hundreds of IS fighters.

The Observatory and Aleppo-based activist Ahamd al-Ahmad said that the area near the northern village of Handarat witnessed intense clashes between Syrian rebels and government forces.

Government forces are trying to cut a main road linking rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo, Syria's largest city, with those in the countryside, Al-Ahmad said via Skype.

The Observatory said the fighting near Handarat has left 15 soldiers and pro-government gunmen dead as well as 12 opposition fighters since the early hours of Saturday.

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Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue contributed to this report from Beirut.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government is recognizing gay marriage in six more states and extending federal benefits to those couples, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Saturday.

Gay marriage recently became legal in Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, North Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming.

The government's announcement follows the U.S. Supreme Court's decision earlier this month to decline to hear appeals from five states that sought to keep their marriage bans in place. It brings the total number of states with federal recognition of gay marriage to 32, plus the District of Columbia.

Couples married in these states will qualify for a range of federal benefits, including Social Security and veterans' benefits.

"With each new state where same-sex marriages are legally recognized, our nation moves closer to achieving full equality for all Americans," Holder said.

The attorney general said the government is working "as quickly as possible" to make sure same-sex married couples in these states receive the "fullest array of benefits" that federal law allows.

The Justice Department also has determined that it can legally recognize gay marriages performed this summer in Indiana and Wisconsin after federal courts declared marriage bans in the states unconstitutional. Subsequent developments created confusion about the status of those unions, but Holder said the U.S. government will recognize the marriages.