GREATEST WAR EVER:

Isis supporters are cheering what they claim is a terror attack, and sharing images of people caught up in and killed by the blasts.

The attacks come after waves of Isis propaganda that encouraged its supporters to launch strikes on Moscow. Isis propaganda shows bullet holes through Mr Putin's head as well as a poster circulated just days before the attack that showed a falling Kremlin and included the message "We Will Burn Russia".

For Iraqi police officer Jassem and his brothers, the battle against Islamic State is personal. The militants captured and beheaded their father, a Shi'ite militiaman, in 2014; before that, the family lost another son fighting the jihadists.

"We were able to identify my dad's body by the tattoo on his arm. The head wasn't found. They had also drilled holes in his hands and cut fingers off," 31-year-old Jassem told Reuters on the front line in Mosul as Iraqi forces battle with Islamic State in the city.

After the murder, Jassem's youngest brother signed up with the army and another joined a Shi'ite paramilitary group. With a further brother already with the Counter-Terrorism Service, that meant their mother had all four of her surviving sons at war.

"Mum wasn't happy," said Jassem, not giving his full name because he works in intelligence. But his brothers still answered the call to arms. "They said Iraq was falling apart, and they wanted to protect it," he said.

The family from southern Iraq - far from Mosul which lies near the country's northern border - is just one of many where entire sets of brothers have taken up arms against Islamic State out of revenge, duty or just to earn money.

The U.S.-backed Iraqi forces are now set to drive the group from its stronghold of Mosul, taken in 2014 when the jihadists seized large areas of Iraq and Syria, proclaiming a caliphate.

Tweet   @brothersjudd