The clashes are continuing between the army and Al-Qaeda in Yemen’s Southeastern Province of Shabwa, the Defense and Interior Ministries as well as Shabwa Governor and local officials have said.

The battlefield is the Al-Hawtah town, the largest in Shabwa, and the confrontations are running not far from the area where the botched bombing of the LNG pipeline took place last week, they said.

Among the terrorist fighters are foreigners, and militants took over homes in the area and displaced the people. According to Shabwa Governor Ali Al-Ahmedi and Secretary General of the Local Council, who also said that the army and special counter terrorism forces are besieging the region and will not leave it until the terrorists surrender.

The confrontations started on Friday after suspected al-Qaeda militants ambushed a security patrol killing and injuring soldiers and civilians on Thursday, the Interior Ministry has previously said.

The News:
http://www.yemenpost … SubID=2601&MainCat=3

Several thousand Somali forces trained in neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya will open a second front against Islamist insurgents by year-end in Somalia’s south and central regions, the prime minister said Sunday.

The forces will try to capture key towns including the port of Kismayo, which is believed to generate a substantial amount of revenue for the insurgency, Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke told reporters in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.

Kenya has a force of 2,000 Somali refugees stationed in northern Kenya, and Ethiopia trained a force of 1,000 fighters under a German-funded program.

“Those forces have now completed their training and we are expecting them to come back and really now open a different front,” Sharmarke said. “Unless you open different fronts you’re not going to end this war.”

The News:
http://somalilandpre … inst-al-shabab-18385

Twenty-two Colombian guerrillas were killed Sunday in an airstrike, the country’s defense minister said.

The Colombian air force bombing was part of an operation against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in southern Colombia, Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera said. The operation was ongoing and more bodies could be found, he said.

Rebels in the area had killed eight police officers in an attack earlier this month.

Sunday’s bombing campaign was one of the strongest blows against the FARC in recent memory.

The News:
http://edition.cnn.c … rc.deaths/index.html

Twenty-three Tajik soldiers were killed Sunday in an attack by “Islamist terrorists” in the east of the Central Asian country, a defence ministry spokesman told AFP.

“Twenty-three defence ministry troops are dead and another 10 were wounded in a terrorist attack committed in the afternoon in the east of Tajikistan,” said spokesman Faridun Makhmadaliyev.

“The attack was committed by two groups of Islamist terrorists,” he added.

A Tajik military source said earlier that a military convoy had been attacked in the mountainous Racht valley, some 250 kilometres east of the capital Dushanbe, as it was trying to reach an observation post.

The News:
http://www.channelne … view/1082200/1/.html

Mauritanian soldiers have clashed with suspected fighters from al-Qaeda’s North African wing (AQIM) in Mali, two days after several foreign nationals were abducted in the region.

The fighting began on Saturday on the Mauritania-Mali border but then moved on to Malian territory, Mauritanian security sources said.

The sources told Al Jazeera that at least 12 AQIM members were killed and several more were injured. On the Mauritanian side, five soldiers were killed and five injured.

“We are presently in Malian territory and engaged in full combat,” a Mauritanian security source told the AFP news agency.

Hamdi Uld-el Hassen, a freelance journalist in Mauritania’s capital, Nouakchott, said the violence is a sign that Mauritania is stepping up its fight against al-Qaeda.

“This was the first palpable challenge to al-Qaeda,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Mauritania now is strengthening the military presence along the Malian border and that was a tangible message to al-Qaeda that Mauritania will not stay like it was in the past - waiting to be targeted by al-Qaeda.

The News:
http://english.aljaz … 091864827197188.html

Two operators of special italian forces have been hit by shells in an operation to capture some people that had placed just before a device along the street.

One of both, lieutenant Alessandro Romani, 36 years, is died, not seriously injured another. It’s happened in district of Bakwa, in Afghanistan. At start seemed that both soldiers weren’t considered life threatening.

Victim is roman lieutenant

Soldier died is lieutenant Alessandro Romani, of IX paratroop regiment Col Moschin, Born in Rome on July 18 1974, had many experiences in foreign missions. Wounded collegue called Elio Domenico Rapisarda.

Both soldiers have been hit at shoulder. Romani, according sources of Defense, had been subject in these hours at surgery in USA hospital “Role 2” in Farah.

The News:
http://www.tgcom.med … articolo491123.shtml

IDF says strongman ran towards soldiers in threatening manner, ignored requests to stop, resulting in him being shot; circumstances of incident under investigation.

IDF soldiers killed a Hamas military commander overnight Thursday during security operations east of the West Bank city of Tulkarm, the IDF spokesperson’s Unit said in a statement on Friday morning.

The statement said that the Hamas member, Iyad Abu Shalabiya, ran towards IDF soldiers in a threatening manner, and had ignored the IDF’s requests to cease his approach, resulting in him being shot.

The News:
http://www.jpost.com … ticle.aspx?id=188429