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Syrian government forces have overrun rebels in a town northeast of Damascus, strengthening President Bashar al-Assad’s grip on territory around the capital.
The town – Adra al-Omalia – is about 30km from central Damascus but far from parts of Syria where the United States has launched air strikes against fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Libyan Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani has ordered “a general mobilization of the armed forces at the request of the people of Tripoli to free the capital from the Islamic militias of Operation Alba (Faraj),” Libyan media reported Wednesday. The government led by Thani had been confirmed one day prior in a parliament vote of confidence.
Libya’s intergovernmental forces claim to have bombed the camp of Abu Obaida al-Libi, leader of the Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia, in Tripoli. “We hit hard,” a military official told ANSA. In addition, the military “won after hard fighting in El Azizia, in the Warshefana, southwest of the capital, freeing it from the pro-Islamic militias,” a Libyan military source told ANSA.
A 45-day ultimatum and amnesty offer by the Somali government has seen dozens of Al-Shabaab militants surrender their arms, a government official has said.
“We are receiving defectors on a daily basis since the president issued the amnesty,” National Security spokesman Mohamed Yusuf Osman told Anadolu Agency by phone.
The Islamic State (I.S.) allegedly killed at least 300 Iraqi soldiers in a chlorine gas attack on an army battalion in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, a lawmaker from the Shia-dominated National Iraqi alliance said on Monday.
“I.S. killed 300 out of 400 soldiers they besieged in Saqlawiya district of northern Fallujah, using chlorine gas.” said MP Ali al-Budairi in a press conference.
U.S. warplanes have attacked dozens of Islamic State targets inside Syria in major escalation of President Barack Obama’s new borderless war against the black-clad jihadists.
“U.S. military and partner nation forces are undertaking military action against terrorists in Syria using a mix of fighter, bomber and Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles,” the Pentagon announced.