Police officers, many of them local Muslims, have been increasingly targeted in recent months in the territory rocked for decades by violence.

A loud blast destroyed the office in Mogadishu's Hodan district and sent up huge clouds of smoke.

The northern province and surrounding areas are the last major swathe of territory held by insurgents fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The abduction of 10 family members was carried out in three districts of southern Kashmir in retaliation for police arrests of the militants' relatives.

Sons, brothers and fathers of police officials have been abducted since Wednesday in three districts, including Kulgam, where five such abductions were carried out.

Thursday's attack took place between the towns of Zliten and Khoms on the coastal road leading from Tripoli to the port city of Misrata.

Two knife-wielding assailants tried to enter a police station in Chechnya's Shalinsky district and attacked and wounded two police officers, investigators said.

In a huge security operation, Jordanian forces laid siege to the building in a residential part of Salt on Saturday night in a search for those responsible for a bomb attack on Friday on a police van.

Hasnat Karim was with his family celebrating his daughter's birthday when militants attacked, taking 22 hostages, mostly foreigners.

The military wing of Gaza's rulers Hamas on Thursday vowed revenge after Israeli strikes killed three militants in the latest flare-up of violence.

A string of suicide blasts and raids claimed by the Islamic State group killed more than 180 people in southern Syria on Wednesday, in one of the jihadists' deadliest ever assaults in the country.

Police said the 34-year-old German citizen wounded 10 people in the attack on Friday.