The Somali terror group al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for an attack on a hotel over the weekend that left at least 26 people dead, including several foreigners. The insurgents first set off a car bomb at the Asasey Hotel in the port city of Kismayo, Somalia, on Friday evening before launching a gunfire siege that lasted more than 14 hours. Responding troops ended the attack when they killed all the insurgents. Regional politicians and elders were inside the hotel discussing an upcoming election when the attack began.

A car bombing that targeted a security compound in central Afghanistan on Sunday left at least 12 people dead and more than 180 others injured, many of them children. The Taliban detonated the bomb during rush hour near the office of the top intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), in Ghazni, according to officials. Eight NDS workers and one child were among the dead, health officials said. The injured included at least 60 children who were attending classes at a nearby private school.

Two suicide attacks on Thursday targeted security forces in Tunisia’s capital, killing one patrol officer and injuring at least eight people. One attacker detonated explosives in a commercial district near the French Embassy in central Tunis shortly before 11 a.m., apparently targeting a police patrol. Ten minutes later, the second bomber struck an entrance to the anti-terrorism brigade on the outskirts of the city.

“One person blew themselves up behind the back door of the police department in El Gorjani neighborhood,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The Australian man accused of the New Zealand mosque shootings pleaded not guilty on Friday to 92 charges of terrorism, murder, and attempted murder. Brenton Tarrant, 28, appeared via video link from a maximum security prison in Auckland, Australia. The attack that killed 51 people on March 15 occurred during Friday prayers at Al Noor mosque and Linwood mosque in Christchurch. About 80 survivors and family members of the victims gathered inside the Christchurch High Court for the hearing.

I didn’t plan it this way, but this year is turning out to be the year of the hostage for me. In Iraq I interviewed half a dozen young Yazidi women earlier this year. All but one were in their teens, enduring nearly five years of ISIS captivity that included sexual abuse.

On Feb. 6, 2015, Marsha and Carl Mueller received news they long dreaded: Their 25-year-old daughter Kayla was dead in Syria. Word came in a tweet from the ISIS militants holding Mueller, an aid worker, for 18 months in Syria. The news ended in the worst way possible a high-stakes hostage saga that included an unsuccessful U.S. Delta Force rescue attempt and weeks of intense negotiations carried on via email.

After a three-day manhunt, French police on Monday arrested four suspects in relation to an explosion in the city of Lyon that wounded 13 people. The detainees include one main suspect and at least two of his family members. One of the suspects is an information technology student of Algerian descent. “It’s a relief for all Lyon inhabitants,” Mayor Gerard Collomb said. “I believe the case has been resolved. If there was a network, it has been identified and will certainly be dismantled,”