The Pentagon and US military officials denied reports that the US led coalition  launched a Special Operations ground offensive on an Islamic State stronghold to free hostages on Friday.

Activist groups that witnessed the event said, "the mission failed when the helicopters were met by ISIS fighters who directly opened fire at them forcing them to take off.”

Ukraine said that pro-Russian separatist militants had killed one soldier and injured five others on Friday, in what were Ukraine’s first military casualties of 2015.

“In the past 24 hours one Ukrainian serviceman has been killed and another five have been injured because of provocative actions. In general, our servicemen are not giving in to provocations and are not opening fire,” said the military spokesperson Andriy Lysenko.

Despite a ceasefire acknowledged by both sides, Lysenko added that there had been frequent shelling and mortar attacks by separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The French defence minister, Jean Yves Le Drian called on world powers to tackle instability in Libya, after meeting Niger’s president, Mahamadou Issoufu on Friday.

Speaking after Issoufu who called for international military intervention, Le Drian said,

“Libya is chaos today and it is a breeding ground for terrorists that threaten the stability of Niger and, further afield, France. We think the moment has come to ensure the international community tackles the Libyan problem. I think this is also what President Issoufou believes."

The US placed further sanctions on North Korea to impede its access to the US financial system, on Friday.

The sanctions named 3 North Korean entities, 10 people and granted powers to the US Treasury to apply sanctions against North Korea’s government officials, reports Reuters.

The sanctioned entities are Reconnaissance General Bureau, North Korea’s intelligence organisation, Korea Mining Development Trading Corp and Korea Tangun Trading Corp.