Encrypted instant messaging service Telegram has denied hackers breached its systems to gain the telephone numbers of 15 million Iranian users. Checks on phone numbers had revealed “publicly available data”, it said. But it admitted that hackers may have compromised more than a dozen accounts by intercepting SMS verification codes but added this was not a “new threat”. It said …

Syrian troops found a mass grave containing around 40 bodies in Palmyra city, captured from Islamic State last Sunday, Syrian state news agency SANA said on Friday. SANA said the grave, which contained many women and children, was in the north-eastern edge of Palmyra. Some of the bodies had been beheaded. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which monitors the …