Friday, January 18, 2013
Nigerian soldiers arrive at the airport in Bamako on Thursday as part of the West African force meant to help French troops drive Islamists from their strongholds in northern Mali.
The first West African regional forces arrived in Mali on Thursday to reinforce French and Malian troops battling to push back al-Qaeda-linked rebels after seven days of French air strikes.
A contingent of around 100 Togolese troops landed in Bamako and was due to be joined by Nigerian forces already en route. Nigerien and Chadian forces were massing in Niger, Mali’s neighbor to the east.
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Wednesday, January 16, 2013
French troops have engaged in close-quarter combat with Islamist fighters on Wednesday in the Malian town of Diabaly in the first ground clashes after days of air strikes, according to security forces.
Earlier, France’s army chief confirmed French troops have begun a ground offensive in Mali.
“The ground operation began several hours ago,” Admiral Edouard Guillaud told Europe 1 radio on Wednesday morning.
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Tuesday, January 15, 2013
The soldier was killed at a position called Kundi during firing from the Indian side that began at 10 p.m. (1630 GMT), Pakistan’s army said in a statement.
Two Pakistani and two Indian soldiers were killed in early January in the worst outbreak of violence in Kashmir since the India and Pakistan agreed a ceasefire nearly a decade ago.
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At least 82 people have been killed and more than 160 injured in two rocket explosions at the University of Aleppo in Syria’s largest city on Tuesday, city officials reported.
According to a Syrian official quoted by SANA, two rocket shells were fired at the university complex.
Aleppo’s governor Mohammed Wahid Akkad called the rocket strikes a “terrorist attack that targeted students on their first day of exams.”
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Monday, January 14, 2013
Three civilians have been killed and another six injured — four seriously – after Burmese troops launched a series of mortar attacks into the heart of the Kachin rebel stronghold in Laiza on Monday morning.
It is the first civilian casualties reported in central Laiza since government forces stepped up its offensive against the rebel base last month.
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