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A one-hour shootout took place in Shan State South, when Burma Army troops attacked a small outpost of the Shan State Army (SSA) North on the Nampang, a tributary of the Salween, on Wednesday, 21 March, according to an SSA source.
“They retreated with casualties (we don’t know how many),” said the SSA officer. “The outpost was reinforced afterward.”
Fifteen rebel Kurds, all of them women, were killed in fighting with Turkish security forces in the southeast of the country, the Turkish interior ministry has said.
The clashes took place in a rural area of Bitlis province, a centre of the armed rebellion being waged by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), according to a statement carried by the official Anatolia news agency on Saturday.
A local security source said the Kurd separatist movement had a number of women-only units and that one of these had been wiped out.
In the face of aggression from the United States or Israel, Iran will attack to defend itself, Iran’s most powerful figure, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday.
“We do not have nuclear weapons and we will not build them but in the face of aggression from the enemies, whether from America or the Zionist regime, to defend ourselves we will attack on the same level as the enemies attack us,” Khamenei said live on television.
“Americans are making a grave mistake if they think by making threats they will destroy the Iranian nation,” he said in his annual speech to mark Nowruz, the Iranian New Year.
Navy ships have shelled suspected Al Qaeda positions in the southern province of Abyan, killing 29 militants, military and security officials said on Thursday.
They said the rocket and artillery barrage, spread out over a 24-hour period that ended early Thursday, struck alleged Al Qaeda targets around the city of Zinjibar, Abyan’s provincial capital.
Soldiers stormed state television and announced early Thursday that they had seized control of the country, dissolving all of its institutions due to the nation’s mishandling of an insurgency in the north.
On national television, a group of about 20 soldiers were shown in fatigues crowding around a desk facing the camera. They introduced themselves as the National Committee for the Reestablishment of Democracy and the Restoration of the State, or CNRDR.