| FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK TWITTER FLIPBOARD TELEGRAM |
A rocket attack targeting a military bus in Syria killed 10 soldiers and wounded nine more in the northwest on Friday, state news agency SANA reported, in a deadly flare-up near the frontier with rebel-held territory close to the Turkish border.
The bus was hit in the Anjara area west of Aleppo at 9:30 a.m. (0630 GMT), SANA said. Militants had targeted the vehicle with an anti-tank rocket, it added, giving no further details.
Finland’s president and prime minister announced their support for joining NATO on Thursday, moving the Nordic nation which shares an 800-mile border with Russia one step closer to membership of the US-led military alliance. The Kremlin has responded by saying the move would be a threat to Russia and warned of possible retaliation.
The statement of support for NATO from President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin had been expected, after the Finnish government recently submitted a report on national security to the country’s parliament which outlined the path to joining the alliance as one of Finland’s options.
Around 65 junta soldiers have been killed in the last three days during intense firefights with resistance forces in Chin and Kayah states and Sagaing Region.
On Monday, the Chin Defense Force-Mindat (CDF-Mindat) said it attacked a junta convoy returning from Matupi in Chin State inflicting heavy casualties.
The Armed Forces Commander of the Federal Somalia State of Puntland, General Abshir Abdi Jama ‘London’, declares an all-out war on the Republic of Somaliland, calling it a haven for terrorists.
The Commander of what the Somalia federal state calls the Dervishes, General Abshir London, speaking to a motley of ill-clad, clan militias on the outskirts of Boocame, Sool region of Somaliland, jestingly scoffed at internationally demarcated boundaries separating the former British Protectorate from the erstwhile Italian colony of Somalia.
Russian forces have escalated their attacks on a steel plant in the southern port of Mariupol where the last Ukrainian defenders, many of them wounded, and at least 100 civilians are still holed up, as missiles rained down on the strategically important Black Sea port of Odesa.
Deputy Ukrainian Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on May 10 that more than 1,000 Ukrainian fighters remained in the sprawling Azovstal steel plant, the last pocket of resistance after almost three months of heavy fighting that has leveled the city.