Russian forces in Ukraine tried to storm a steel plant housing soldiers and civilians in the southern city of Mariupol on Saturday while attempting to crush the last corner of resistance in a location of high symbolic and strategic value to Moscow, Ukrainian officials said.

The reported assault on the eve of Orthodox Easter came after the Kremlin claimed its military had seized all of Mariupol except for the Azovstal plant and as Russia’s military pounded other cities and towns in southern and eastern Ukraine. Officials reported that Russia fired at least six cruise missiles at the Black Sea port city of Odesa, killing five people.

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At least 16 people were killed in two Afghan cities on Thursday by bomb blasts that were claimed by the Daesh..

Since Taliban fighters seized control of Afghanistan last year after ousting the US-backed government, the number of bombings has fallen but the terrorists and Sunni Daesh has continued with attacks — often against Shiite targets.

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Three suspected New People’s Army (NPA) fighters were killed by the military in separate armed encounters in Negros Occidental and Quezon province, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) reported Wednesday, April 20.

Col. Jorry Baclor, chief of AFP public affairs office, said the successive military offensives were part of the intensified campaign of the AFP against the Communist Party of the Philippines and New People’s Army (CPP-NPA), which they call communist-terrorist groups (CTGs), to secure the May 9 elections.

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Russian forces have taken over the eastern Ukrainian city of Kreminna after launching an offensive in the region.

Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, said in a briefing Russian troops captured the area while Ukrainian troops withdrew, Reuters reported.

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Turkey launched a new ground and air cross-border operation against suspected Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) bases in Duhok province, the Turkish defense minister announced early on Monday.

Turkish jets and artillery struck PKK targets consisting of “shelters, bunkers, caves, tunnels, ammunition depots and a so-called headquarter belonging to the terrorist organization,” Hulusi Akar said.

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