A gunman shot dozens at a Tunisian beach resort, a suicide bomber targeted a mosque in Kuwait and in France, a lone killer pinned a decapitated head to the gates of a factory, in an international Islamist assault in a single day.
The killings were not apparently co-ordinated, but the Islamic State group claimed the bloody attacks in Tunisia and Kuwait, which come just days before the first anniversary of its declaration of a "caliphate" spanning Iraq and Syria.
Thirty-eight people - most of them British tourists, but also Germans, Belgians and French - were shot dead on Friday at the packed Tunisian Mediterranean resort of Port el Kantaoui after a man pulled out a gun hidden inside a beach umbrella.
IS said the gunman, who they identified as Abu Yahya al-Qayrawani, was a "solidier of the caliphate" who had targeted enemies of the jihadist group and "dens (of...) fornication, vice and apostasy".
The jihadists also claimed the suicide bombing at a Shi'ite mosque in a rare attack on Kuwait in which 27 people were killed, and Islamist flags were found at the site of the French attack.
The bloodshed comes on the second Friday of the holy month of Ramadan during which Muslims observe a fast from dawn to sunset every day.
On Tuesday, Islamic State group spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani called for Muslims to engage in jihad and become martyrs during Ramadan.
The day of Islamist bloodshed began with a dawn raid on an African Union base in Somalia by al-Qaeda affiliated Shabab militants.
Witnesses said as many as 50 people were killed in Lego village, 100 kilometres northwest of the capital Mogadishu, and some of them were beheaded, before Shabab hoisted a black Islamic flag over the base.
In France, at least one extremist rammed a car into a factory owned by US firm Air Products near France's second city of Lyon.
The severed head of a businessman, identified as the suspect's boss by police, was found attached to the gates of the factory.
The alleged attacker, named by police as Yassin Salhi, appeared to have been trying to blow up the plant by releasing explosive gases when he was caught.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the attacker was known to have links to a radical form of Sunni Islam and Islamist flags were displayed around the severed head.
French President Francois Hollande also said inscriptions were found on the headless body, without giving further details.
Shortly after the attack in France, a gunman entered a resort on the sun-soaked Tunisian coast before opening fire, the second attack against tourists this year and the worst in the country's recent history.
Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid said 38 people had been killed, most of them British tourists, as well as Germans, Belgians and French. An earlier death toll of 39 was said to have included the dead gunman.
The day's third attack hit Kuwait when a suicide bomber entered a mosque in the capital as Muslims took part in Friday prayers, killing 27 people and wounding more than 200.
It was the Gulf state's first such attack in nearly a decade.
An IS-affiliated group in Saudi Arabia, calling itself Najd Province, said one of its militants had carried out the bombing in a mosque it claimed was spreading Shi'ite teachings among Sunni Muslims.
IS, a radical Sunni Muslim group, considers Shi'ites to be heretics. Najd Province has also claimed responsibility for several other attacks on Shi'ite mosques in neighbouring Saudi Arabia.
Kuwait's emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, said after visiting the site of the attack that it was "a desperate and evil attempt targeting Kuwait's national unity".
France and Spain raised their alert level after the attacks, and Britain increased security at public events.
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