Friday, May 15, 2015
Security forces defend their headquarters against Islamic State extremists during a sandstorm in Ramadi. (AP)
Islamic State militants have captured the main government compound in Ramadi after fierce clashes with Iraqi security forces, officials said.
The city’s mayor Dalaf al-Kubaisi said the militants raised the black flag of IS over the area after troops were forced to withdraw from the compound, which houses most of the city’s government offices.
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Random shelling of residential areas in the restive eastern Libyan city of Benghazi has killed eight people from one family, including seven children, officials said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack late Thursday. It came days after an operative from Libya’s Islamic State affiliate was killed in fighting in this city, where clashes have been raging for nearly a year.
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Boko Haram fighters launched an attack on northeast Nigeria’s largest city Maiduguri on Wednesday but were repelled by Nigerian troops after intense clashes, residents and the army said.
Dozens of militants armed with heavy guns and rocket-propelled grenades stormed the northern outskirts of the city near Giwa military base, shooting and firing explosives indiscriminately, local witnesses told AFP.
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Barely hours after the Tuareg-led armed rebel groups said they would approve a preliminary peace deal with the government to end violence in northern Mali, fresh clashes in the region led to the deaths of at least four people on Wednesday. The renewed violence erupted between members of the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA) — a coalition of five rebel groups — and pro-government militias near the village of Ikadewan, according to media reports.
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Thursday, May 14, 2015
The Iraqi military said Wednesday that ISIS’ No. 2 leader has been killed in a coalition airstrike — a claim that the Pentagon said it does not corroborate.
The airstrike struck northern Iraq’s Tal Afar city, killing ISIS deputy Abu Alaa al-Afri and a senior ISIS security figure named Akram Qirbash, also known as the “Judge of Judges,” the Iraqi Defense Ministry said.
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