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Eight people were killed after militants stormed a hotel in Somalia’s port city of Kismayo, an attack that started with a suicide bombing Sunday before gunmen forcibly entered and exchanged fire with security forces.
The Islamic extremist group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack, saying its fighters had penetrated the Tawakal Hotel.
Myanmar ethnic rebels attacked a key town near the Thai border yesterday, residents and local media said, with the military junta calling in air strikes.
The Karen National Union (KNU) has been a vocal opponent of the coup which brought the generals to power last year, and has provided shelter to dissidents working to oust the junta.
Sudan’s army said on Wednesday a rebel group that has refused to sign a key peace deal had shelled a town in the southern state of West Kordofan, wounding two officers.
The reported artillery strikes in Lagawa, some 580 km southwest of the capital Khartoum, come after ethnic clashes last week in a land dispute near the town left several people dead.
A colonel in Myanmar junta’s 44th Light Infantry Division (LID) involved in operations on the Falu-Waw Lay road in Myawaddy Township on the Thai border was killed on Wednesday morning, according to the Karen National Union (KNU).
Colonel Win Min Oo was killed by a sniper in fighting at Nyaung Chaung village between Waw Lay and Thay Baw Boe in Karen State.
In Ethiopia, rebels in the northern Tigray region say Ethiopian troops backed by Eritrean soldiers have seized the key city of Shire amid heavy fighting northwest of the Tigrayan capital.
Aid workers report thousands of civilians have begun fleeing the fighting over the weekend amid fears they could face mass killings and sexual violence.
