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Iraqi forces, supported by local Sunni militia, have opened a new front against ISIS in the Hawija Plains, north of the group’s stronghold of Hawija, 58 km southwest of Kirkuk.
Iraqi forces have so far liberated two villages north of Hawija, Shayyal al Abali and Shayyal al Imam, reported Rudaw’s Nabard Hussein who is embedded with the advancing troops.
French jets based in Djibouti “struck and likely killed” senior al Qaeda operative Mokhtar Belmokhtar, known as the “one-eyed terrorist”, in a joint US-French operation, according to US officials cited by the Wall Street Journal.
The article recalled that previous reports of Belmokhtar’s death have been false, but said that this time the “caliber of the intelligence” indicated that the strike “likely was successful”.
Eleven members of the Islamist Maute group have been killed in clashes with government soldiers in Butig town in Lanao del Sur, the military said Sunday.
Col. Edgard Arevalo, public affairs chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), said five more members of the bandits group were wounded in the clashes, which started Saturday morning.
At least 55 people have been killed in fierce fighting that erupted in western Uganda between security forces and a separatist militia linked to a tribal king, police said Sunday.
Police spokesman Andrew Felix Kaweesi said 14 police officers and 41 militants had died in the clashes in the town of Kasese on Saturday, when fighters linked to the royal guard of the Rwenzururu kingdom attacked patrolling security forces.
Four heavily-armed suicide bombers attacked a military facility in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday and killed two soldiers, but failed to storm a busy mosque inside, the army said.
A splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, claimed responsibility for the attack on Ghalani Camp in Mohmand Agency that is part of the lawless Federally Administered Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan.