ISIS, IS, the Islamic State, ISIL -- the international community can't seem to decide what to call the Islamic extremists who have been terrorizing the Middle East, and now the French government has announced it will use yet another name for them, which is reportedly upsetting the group.

The French foreign ministry released a statement earlier this week referencing the Islamic State group as "Daesh." The new moniker is a transliteration of an acronym of the group's Arabic name "al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham. It is also similar to the arabic word that means "to trample."

France's foreign minister Laurent Fabius explained that he views the organization as "a terrorist group, not a state."

“I do not recommend using the term Islamic State because it blurs the lines between Islam, Muslims and Islamists. The Arabs call it ‘Daesh,’ and I will be calling them the ‘Daesh cutthroats,'" Fabius said, according to France 24.

The Associated Press reported that the extremist group finds the term disrespectful.

Many media organizations have adopted the term "Islamic State," including The Huffington Post. But Secretary of State John Kerry aligns with the French on this issue.

At a hearing on Thursday, Kerry brought a new term to the table: the "enemy of Islam."

"I call them the 'enemy of Islam' because that's what I think they are, and they certainly don't represent a state even though they try to claim to," Kerry said.

It doesn't end there. A group of Muslims in the UK has called on the government to call the group the "UnIslamic State."

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Rome (AFP) - Security has been tightened in Saint Peter's Square after intelligence services intercepted a possible plan to attack the Vatican, Italian media reported Saturday, increasing fears Pope Francis could be in danger.

A foreign security service alerted Italy this week after intercepting a conversation between two Arab speakers which referred to "a demonstrative act, Wednesday, at the Vatican," Il Messaggero daily reported.

Wednesday is the day the pope holds his weekly general audience in the square in front of Saint Peter's Basilica.

Checks by Italy's anti-terrorism unit revealed that one of the speakers passed through the country eight months ago, heightening concerns the threat may be real.

Earlier warnings that the Islamic State extremists may be plotting to attack the pope have been shrugged off by the Vatican, but security has nonetheless been increased for his Wednesday and Sunday audiences, the paper said.

The Repubblica daily said plain clothes special operations officers with sniffer dogs trained in seeking out explosives were helping Vatican police vet tourists, while hotels in the area were also being kept under surveillance.

The news came a day before Francis's trip to Albania, where the pontiff is expected to mingle with the crowds as usual despite reports of possible danger from new IS recruits returning from the Middle East to the mostly-Muslim country.

Some worry the pope has made himself a target by speaking out against the Islamic State group and having the Holy See voice support for US air strikes in Iraq.

In an interview with Italy's La Nazione daily this week, Iraq's ambassador to the Holy See, Habib Al Sadr, said "what has been declared by the self-declared Islamic State is clear. They want to kill the pope. The threats against the pope are credible."

The Vatican played down the warning, saying security measures for the trip would remain unchanged.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Dozens of Turkish hostages seized by Islamic militants in Iraq three months ago were freed and safely returned to Turkey on Saturday, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, ending Turkey's most serious hostage crisis.

The 49 hostages were captured from the Turkish Consulate in Mosul, Iraq on June 11, when the Islamic State group overran the city in its surge to seize large swaths of Iraq and Syria.

Their release contrasts with the recent beheadings of two U.S. journalists and a British aid worker by the Islamic State group, but it wasn't immediately clear what Turkey had done to secure the safe return of the hostages.

Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said the hostages are 49 Turkish consulate employees — 46 Turks and three local Iraqis. They include Consul General Ozturk Yilmaz, other diplomats, children and special forces police.

The hostages were released early on Saturday and had arrived in Turkey, Davutoglu told Turkish reporters during a visit to Baku, Azerbaijan. He cut his visit short to meet them in the province of Sanliurfa, near Turkey's border with Syria and was bringing them back to Ankara on his plane.

He didn't say where the release took place, but Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency said the hostages had been held in eight separate addresses in Mosul. Their whereabouts were monitored by drones and other means, it said.

Turkey had been reluctant to join a coalition to defeat the Islamic State group, citing the safety of its 49 kidnapped citizens. The United States had been careful not to push Turkey too hard as it tried to free the hostages.

The extremist group beheaded two U.S. journalists and a British aid worker who were working in Syria as payback for airstrikes that Washington has launched against them in Iraq.

Turkish leaders gave only limited details of the release and it wasn't clear what they had done to avoid a similar outcome for their hostages.

The Anadolu Agency reported no ransom had been paid and "no conditions were accepted in return for their release." The agency, which didn't cite any source, also reported there were five or six previous attempts to secure the Turks' release, but none of them were successful.

Davutoglu said the release was the result of the intelligence agency's "own methods," and not a "point operation" involving special forces, but didn't elaborate.

"After intense efforts that lasted days and weeks, in the early hours, our citizens were handed over to us and we brought them back to our country," Davutoglu said.

Meanwhile, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the Turks were freed through "a successful operation."

"I thank the prime minister and his colleagues for this operation which was pre-planned, whose every detail was calculated, which lasted through the night in total secrecy and ended successfully this morning," Erdogan said in a statement.

Iraqi military spokesman Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said the government had no information about the release of the hostages and didn't know where they had been held or where they were released.

Thirty-two Turkish truck drivers who were also seized in Mosul on June 6 were released a month later. Turkey did not provide information surrounding their release.

___

Associated Press writer Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Kiev (AFP) - Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian militias were due Saturday to pull back their troops from a demilitarised zone created under a new peace plan agreed in marathon overnight talks.

A nine-point agreement thrashed out in the early hours of Saturday in the Belarussian capital Minsk also requires the withdrawal of all "mercenaries" from eastern Ukraine and an immediate end to hostilities.

But Russia appeared ready to keep up the pressure on its westward-leaning neighbour by sending in a new convoy it claimed was carrying aid for the rebel-held city of Donetsk that Ukraine never approved.

Former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma -- representing Kiev throughout stuttering efforts to resolve the five-month conflict -- said the agreement rested on the creation of a 30-kilometre (20-mile) buffer zone.

Forces from both sides are required to retreat 15 kilometres from current frontlines within 24 hours of the signing of the accord and allow monitors from the OSCE pan-European security organisation into the area to make sure the truce holds.

Territory under rebel control would be left open to their administration under a temporary self-rule plan adopted by lawmakers in Kiev on Tuesday.

The Minsk pact -- also signed by Moscow's ambassador to Kiev and the self-proclaimed "prime ministers" of the rebel-run regions of Donetsk and Lugansk -- aims to shore up a ceasefire deal agreed two weeks ago.

The latest agreement crucially requires both sides to immediately withdraw "foreign mercenaries" from the conflict zone in industrial eastern Ukraine.

Kiev and Western allies accuse Russia of clandestinely slipping at least 1,000 paratroopers into east Ukraine to help the guerrillas mount a surprise counter-offensive late last month.

The Kremlin denies ordering soldiers into Ukraine. But Moscow's Kiev envoy Mikhail Zurabov told Russian media after the Minsk signing ceremony that both sides appeared to have hired foreign mercenaries.

Both sides agreed to leave the most divisive political issues concerning the rebel-held area's status for future negotiation in order to get the terms of the truce worked out first.

View gallery

Ukrainian army paratroopers sit atop the APC as they move to position inin Debaltsevo, Donetsk's reg …

- New Russian convoy -

The elusive ultimate goal is to find a lasting solution to a conflict that has claimed nearly 3,000 lives and stoked Western alarm about Russia's territorial ambitions.

The talks came in the wake of a peace overture by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that included a limited self-rule offer for separatist-controlled areas in the east and an amnesty for all fighters.

The offer was welcomed in Moscow but treated with caution by rebel commanders who had been seizing back large swathes of territory from Ukrainian forces in the days preceding the September 5 truce.

The ceasefire has helped calm the worst fighting but continues to be regularly broken around Donetsk -- the scene of almost daily shelling on the city's outskirts -- and other disputed parts of the Russian-speaking industrial heartland.

The Ukrainian said Saturday one soldier had died in the latest day of fighting. Thirty-five government troops and civilians have been reported killed by state and local authorities since the truce.

AFP reporters in Donetsk also saw three massive explosions, followed by small mushroom clouds, go off in the dawn hours Saturday at a rebel-held building that once housed a Soviet-era munitions factory.

"When the first two explosions went off I woke up," said a 15-year-old schoolboy named Bogdan. "I could feel the wave of the impact, the vibrations in my body."

Local officials reported no casualties but could not immediately explain what set off the blasts.

Rebel representatives in the city of nearly one million said they had also received a huge Russian humanitarian convoy overnight -- a type of shipment Kiev believes Moscow may be using to secretly supply the rebels with arms.

Ukraine's national security and defence council spokesman Volodymyr Polyovy said Russia had "violated international law and our sovereignty" because it never gave Ukrainian customs officials a chance to inspect the cargo.

- NATO readies response -

The Minsk meeting came at the end of a dizzying week for Poroshenko that included Ukraine's ratification of a landmark EU association agreement for which he personally lobbied and a visit to Washington for talks with US President Barack Obama.

But the 48-year-old chocolate baron failed to convince Obama to become more directly involved in resisting Russia's "aggression" by providing Kiev with offensive arms.

The United States instead approved an additional $46-million non-lethal aid shipment that will provide Ukraine with equipment such as night vision goggles and bullet-proof vests.

Ukraine was still set to receive an important boost from the 28-member NATO military alliance when its defence chiefs gather Saturday in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius for a three-day meeting focused on ways to counter Kremlin's expansionist threat.

The Western military alliance -- of which Ukraine is not a member -- is due to set up regional command centres in eastern Europe that would help coordinate the actions of a rapid-response "spearhead" force approved by NATO earlier this mont.

Ukraine buffer zone deal signed

Kiev and pro-Russian separatists agree to create a demilitarized zone in conflict-torn eastern Ukraine.
What else is included

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has told The Associated Press he is prepared to give whatever support is needed in the fight against the Islamic State group but says military action is not the only answer.

In his first interview with foreign media since taking office in June, el-Sissi on Saturday did not elaborate what support Egypt might give, but appeared to rule out sending troops, saying Iraq's military is sufficient and "it's not an issue of ground troops from abroad."

Instead, he spoke of a "comprehensive strategy" that confronts militants across the region, not just the Islamic State group. He says he warned about the threat of terrorism in the region a year ago but others only understood when Islamic State group fighters overran parts of Iraq.

Full AP Interview: El-Sissi, Egypt and the terror fight

Egypt ready to back fight against Islamic State

President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi says he will do whatever is required in the war against the radical group.
Calls for comprehensive plan