Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki says he will alter his country’s security strategy after a wave of attacks killed scores of people across the country on May 20.
Maliki said his government is about to “make changes in the high and middle positions of those responsible for security, and security strategy.”
The Nigerian military say Boko Haram militants in the north-east of the country are “in disarray” and leaving the country in large numbers as a result of its offensive against them.
In a statement, it said 14 enemy fighters had been killed and 20 apprehended since Saturday.
Syrian troops celebrate as they take control of the village of Haydariyah, some seven kilometers outside the rebel-held town of Qusair
The Syrian military, backed by Hezbollah, pounded the rebel-held town of Qusair on Sunday, killing at least 13 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“After two days of calm, planes bombed the town of Qusair in the early hours of the morning,” the watchdog’s director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
At least 13 people, including rebels, were killed in these raids and in artillery and mortar fire by the army.
“It seems that this is preparation for a major operation,” he said.
The Horn of Africa has been ravaged by war and famine for decades, and now one of Somalia’s regions, hopes to become an independent state.
Somaliland sits on the Gulf of Aden and is officially regarded as an autonomous region of Somalia. The two were, however, separate until 1960. During the civil war in the 1980s, 40,000 people from Somaliland were killed, and nearly half a million fled.
The region then declared independence in 1991. Since then, it has held four peaceful elections.
