DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — A prominent Bangladeshi-American blogger known for speaking out against religious extremism was hacked to death as he walked through Bangladesh's capital with his wife, police said Friday.

The attack Thursday night on Avijit Roy, a Bangladesh-born U.S. citizen, occurred on a crowded sidewalk as he and his wife, Rafida Ahmed, were returning from a book fair at Dhaka University. Ahmed, who is also a blogger, was seriously injured. It was the latest in a series of attacks on secular writers in Bangladesh in recent years.

A previously unknown militant group, Ansar Bangla 7, claimed responsibility for the attack, Assistant Police Commissioner S.M. Shibly Noman told the Prothom Alo newspaper.

Roy "was the target because of his crime against Islam," the group said on Twitter.

Roy was a prominent voice against religious intolerance, and his family and friends say he had been threatened for his writings.

Christian Today @ChristianToday Follow Please pray for the family of prominent atheist blogger #avijitroy hacked to death in Dhaka http:// bit.ly/1JUINRS 9:56 AM - 27 Feb 2015 3 RETWEETS

About 8:45 p.m. Thursday, a group of men ambushed the couple as they walked toward a roadside tea stall, with at least two of the attackers hitting them with meat cleavers, police Chief Sirajul Islam said. The attackers then ran away, disappearing into the crowds.

Two blood-stained cleavers were found after the attack, he said.

Islamic extremism has made few inroads in Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority nation of 160 million people, but there have been a series of similar attacks in recent years blamed on militants.

A divide has become increasingly visible between secular bloggers and conservative Islamic groups, often covertly connected with Islamist parties, with the secularists urging authorities to ban religion-based politics while the Islamists press for blasphemy laws to protect their faith.

Islam is Bangladesh's state religion but the country is governed by secular laws based on British common law, and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has repeatedly said she will not give in to religious extremism.

Roy had founded a popular Bengali-language blog, Mukto-mona, or Free Mind, which featured articles on scientific reasoning and religion.

The website has apparently been shut down since the attack, but Roy defended atheism in a January posting on Facebook, calling it "a rational concept to oppose any unscientific and irrational belief."

Anujit Roy, his younger brother, said Roy had returned to the country earlier this month from the U.S. and was planning to go back in March.

In 2013, another blogger, Ahmed Rajib Haider, who also spoke out against religious extremism, was killed by still-unidentified assailants near his Dhaka home. In 2004, Humayun Azad, a prominent writer and teacher at Dhaka University, was seriously injured in an attack when he was returning from the same book fair.

Baki Billah, a friend of Roy and a blogger, told Independent TV that Roy had been threatened earlier by people upset at his writing.

"He was a free thinker. He was a Hindu but he was not only a strong voice against Islamic fanatics but also equally against other religious fanatics," Billah said.

"We are saddened. We don't know what the government will do to find the killers. We want justice," he said.

Fighters of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) carry their weapons along a street in the Syrian Kurdish city of Qamishli, in celebration after it was reported that Kurdish forces took control of the Syrian town of Tel Hamis, February 27, 2015. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Mariam Karouny

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Kurdish forces dealt a blow to Islamic State by capturing an important town on Friday in the latest stage of a powerful offensive in northeast Syria, a Kurdish militia spokesman said.

Islamic State has been forced into retreat across parts of the strategic region, a land bridge between territory it controls in Syria and Iraq, even as its fighters have mounted new raids this week on Assyrian Christian villages, abducting more than 200 people.

The capture of Tel Hamis was announced by the Kurdish YPG militia and confirmed by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the country's civil war.

"The flag is flying over Tel Hamis. We are now combing the city for terrorists and mines," militia spokesman Redur Xelil told Reuters.

"Daesh continue to have a considerable number of territories and forces. But we can say we have stopped its advance," Xelil said, using the Arabic acronym of Islamic State

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Fighters of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) carry their weapons along a street in th …

The British-based Observatory said Kurdish forces killed at least 175 members and commanders of the ultra-hardline Islamist militants in an offensive which began last weekend.

"The bodies of these fighters are still with the Kurdish militants," said the Observatory's head Rami Abdulrahman. He said the Kurds, with backing from U.S.-led air strikes, have taken at least 103 villages in the area and are now in the village of Suleima on the border with Iraq.

The United States and its allies have carried out hundreds of air strikes in Iraq and Syria since launching a campaign to "degrade and destroy" Islamic State, which last year declared a "caliphate" on territory it has captured in both countries.

The U.S.-led coalition has launched 20 strikes against Islamic State in Syria since early Thursday, its Combined Joint Task Force said on Friday.

TOUGH FOE

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Fighters of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) carry their weapons along a street in th …

The Kurdish YPG militia has been one of Islamic State's toughest enemies in Syria. Last month it flushed the group out of Kobani on the Turkish border, breaking the militants' four-month siege of the town with the help of U.S. and allied air support and Iraqi Kurdish reinforcements on the ground.

Since then, Kurdish forces backed by other Syrian armed groups have pursued Islamic State fighters as far their provincial stronghold of Raqqa.

But while the group has shown signs of strain after the Kobani battle, it is far from collapsing. This week it abducted at least 220 Assyrian Christians in the region of Tel Tamr, about 100 km (60 miles) west of Tel Hamis, according to the Observatory.

Their fate remains unclear.

"We do not know what happened or is happening to them, a prominent Syrian Christian, Bassam Ishak, told Reuters. "There are attempts from some church members to engage in negotiations but we do not how fruitful it will be."

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Volunteers from the Yazidi sect who have joined the Kurdish peshmerga forces to fight against milita …

Syria's foreign ministry sent letters to the United Nations Secretary-General and Security Council regarding the attacks, appealing for international cooperation.

"The international community should confirm its commitment to fighting terrorism .. through coordinating with Syria, which is standing as an impervious dam against the spread of international terrorism," state news agency SANA quoted the foreign ministry as saying.

While bent on destroying Islamic State, the United States refuses to ally itself with President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's civil war. More than 200,000 people have been killed since 2011 in the conflict, which pits Assad's forces against an array of jihadist and other rebel factions.

Washington on Wednesday condemned the attacks against Christians, which it said included the burning of homes and churches and abduction of women, children and the elderly.

Islamic State has staged mass killings of religious minorities, including Yazidis in Iraq and Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya, as well as fellow Sunni Muslims who refuse to swear allegiance to its caliphate.

(Reporting by Mariam Karouny; additional reporting by Tom Perry; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

The Islamic State is systematically killing religious and ethnic minorities in northern Iraq in an effort to eliminate them from the region permanently, according to a new report.

Several human rights groups released on Friday what they consider to be the first legal analysis for war crimes proceedings against IS.

The report, titled “Between the Millstones,” says the jihadists are guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and even genocide for their persecution of Christians, Kaka’i, Shabak, Turkmen and Yazidi.

“You could argue that ISIS’ quest for purity is very similar to what the Nazi party was looking for,” William Spencer, executive director of the Institute for International Law and Human Rights (IILHR), said in an interview with Yahoo News. “What was happening in World War II was so incredible, nobody believed it [at first]. But here everyone is aware of it and believes it.”

Spencer, lead author of the report, says military action against the Islamic State receives the majority of the public’s attention, but we must also focus on the worsening refugee crisis.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres warned on Thursday that almost 12 million people have been displaced by the Syrian Civil War, AFP reported.

“As the level of despair rises, and the available protection space shrinks, we are approaching a dangerous turning point,” he told the U.N. Security Council.

The bloodshed in Syria and Iraq has created what may be the worst refugee crisis since World War II.

“We need immediate planning for the post-ISIS era,” Guterres said. “Refugees need a reason to go home. They need a safe and secure place to go home regardless of what happens on the battlefield.”

In other words, it’s not only about going after the villains with weaponry but also helping the innocent with increased humanitarian assistance.

After addressing the immediate crisis, the study proposes, the international community must work toward legal and social reforms to stop the marginalization of minorities in the area.

The study focuses on the conditions of minorities in the region since the city of Mosul fell to the militant group in a June 2014 offensive. This advance caused a massive upsurge of displacement.

Minorities already faced discrimination and violence before the arrival of the Islamic State, Spencer says, but now their existence is under threat: More than 2 million people have been displaced.

“These atrocities cannot go unremarked and unaddressed; the Iraqi Government and the international community have to obtain accountability and redress for the victims,” Alison Smith, legal counsel for No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ), said in a news release.

IILHR and NPWJ complied the report with two other nongovernmental organizations: Minority Rights Group International (MRG) and the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO).

On Thursday, the groups presented their legal case to the Subcommittee on Human Rights of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

They released the study to the general public the following morning.

MOSCOW (AP) — A senior Russian diplomat on Friday accused the U.S. administration of taking a "destructive" stance in bilateral relations and warned that Moscow could deal "painful" counterblows.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Secretary of State John Kerry breached "diplomatic ethics" when he told U.S. lawmakers earlier this week that Russian officials had lied to him about support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. Ryabkov added in remarks carried by Russian news agencies that Washington "lacks moral right" to make such judgment.

Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of backing the rebels with troops and weapons. Moscow denies that, and Ryabkov again dismissed the U.S. accusations as "absolutely unfounded" and "unacceptable."

He warned that Moscow could retaliate to potential new U.S. sanctions, but wouldn't necessarily make them public.

"We are working on them, but it would be wrong to announce them in advance, and, in fact, announce some of them at all," Ryabkov said. "We are leaving all options for ourselves. We have used and, if necessary, will use quite painful countermeasures."

"Our bilateral agenda with the United States has become utterly negative because of the destructive course taken by Washington," Ryabkov said, adding that there are few issues on which Moscow and Washington could still cooperate.

He said that the Iranian nuclear talks remained one of those areas and voiced hope that an agreement could be reached before a March 31 deadline.

The U.S. and Iran have reported progress on a deal that would clamp down on Tehran's nuclear activities for at least 10 years but then slowly ease restrictions on programs that could be used to make atomic arms.

Ryabkov said the latest round of talks has proven that "a chance for reaching agreement on time far exceed the probability of a failure or a delay."

He said that once U.N. sanctions against Iran are lifted, Moscow expects to expand its military and nuclear cooperation with Iran. Russia, which built Iran's first nuclear power plant in the southern port of Bushehr, signed a deal last November to build two more reactors, which would be possibly followed by another six.

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James Foley's parents on 'Jihadi John': Identity not important

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — The parents of an American journalist beheaded by the Islamic State group say they are surprised a college-educated, London-raised man is the masked militant known as "Jihadi John" from the video of their son's slaying but also realize stopping him won't end the bloodshed.

"The point is if we capture him and bring him to justice, what does that do? ISIS is still doing its thing. It's a very narrow approach. We will be happy when ISIS is defeated," John Foley, father of slain freelance journalist James Foley, said during an interview with reporters Thursday in Tucson, Arizona. "The next 'Jihadi John' is on the way."

The Foleys spoke about the front man for IS murder videos with reporters before they participated in a forum at the University of Arizona on the growing dangers journalists face in conflict areas. James Foley was captured by the Islamic State group in November 2012 and killed last August.

But it came as a surprise to Diane Foley that "Jihad John" was revealed to be Mohammed Emwazi, a soccer-loving young man from London who was educated and showed promise before joining militants in Syria.

"So he, in a sense, had a privileged upbringing, so to me that makes that even more sad that he'd want to use his gifts for such evil and such hatred. It's very frightening to me," she said.

Diane Foley added that Emwazi, a Kuwait-born computer science graduate educated in Britain, was a sad and sick man.

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This undated file still image from video released April 7, 2011, by GlobalPost, shows James Foley of …

"We need to forgive him for not having a clue what he was doing," she said.

Emwazi is in his mid-20s and had been known to British intelligence services since at least 2009. He appeared in a video released in August denouncing the West before the 40-year-old Foley was killed. A man with similar stature and voice was also featured in videos of the IS killings of American journalist Steven Sotloff, Britons David Haines and Alan Hemming, and U.S. aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig.

At the university event, the Foleys, of New Hampshire, said the government — and the press — failed to do enough to save the lives of Foley and others. They talked about being kept in the dark by government officials investigating the kidnapping.

"For one year, we didn't really know where he was or whether he was alive," John Foley said.

Diane Foley added: "We had no one who was accountable for Jim, if you will."

The Foleys also said some responsibility lies with U.S. members of the media who failed to continue reporting on their son's kidnapping, letting it fall out of the news cycle.

"We're a hot item when it's a fresh story, but after the item dissipates, we couldn't catch a cold," John Foley said.

The couple was joined by Terry Anderson, a former Associated Press correspondent who was held captive in Lebanon for nearly seven years, and David McGraw, an attorney for The New York Times.