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UAE-backed Yemeni forces have completely cleansed al-Qaeda militants from Mahfad district, al-Qaeda’s major stronghold in the southern province of Abyan, local government and military officials said on Sunday.
In the lightning offensive on the district earlier this month, forces from Security Belt stormed the town of Mahfad and a large of swathe of lands including scattered villages that have long been safe havens for the militants.
The Syrian army and its allies have entered a final phase of the operation to retake outskirts of the Syrian city of Abu Kamal (some 140 km from Deir ez-Zor) from the Islamic State terrorist group (outlawed in Russia), Syrian SANA news agency said on Saturday.
The government forces have encircled the enemies, cutting off retreat in the direction of the Syrian border with Iraq.
Government forces wrested back the final piece of the Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate in Iraq, the country’s military said Friday, reclaiming the small town of Rawah near the border with Syria.
The Islamic State extremist group, which at its peak in 2014 held about a third of Iraq, including large cities such as Mosul, Tikrit and Fallujah, is now scattered and severely diminished. With the loss of Rawah, the militants no longer can claim to hold territory in Iraq and are quickly ceding ground in Syria, as well.
Egyptian military has launched a major counter-terrorism operation in the restive Sinai Peninsula, killing three militants and arresting 74 others, PressTV reported.
Military spokesman Colonel Tamer el-Rifai said Thursday that a number of raids had been carried out on the hideouts of militants in Sinai earlier in the day.
Zimbabwe’s military seized power on Wednesday saying it was holding President Robert Mugabe and his family safe while targeting “criminals” in the entourage of the man who has ruled the nation since independence 37 years ago.