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Suspected Islamists have killed at least nine United Nations peacekeepers from Niger in northeastern Mali, in the deadliest attack ever on the mission, military sources say.
The UN mission did not immediately hold any armed group responsible, but a Nigerian officer from the mission said the attack had been carried out by the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), an al-Qaeda-linked militia behind numerous attacks in recent years.
Islamist militants besieging the Syrian border city of Kobani appeared poised late Friday for a direct assault on the predominantly Kurdish enclave after a day of intense shelling.
After nightfall, at least three massive explosions, apparently from airstrikes, shook Kobani and the surrounding area, lighting up the evening sky. The blasts drew cheers from Kurdish refugees who fled the city and have been watching the fighting from hillsides on the Turkish side of the border.
Turkey’s parliament has approved a motion to combat the “Islamic State.” The bill proposed new powers to launch military incursions into Syria and Iraq and allow foreign forces to use Turkish territory.
Turkey’s parliament voted 298-98 on Thursday in favor of launching military operations across the border in Syria and Iraq, in a bid to combat the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (IS).
Pro-Russia forces operating in eastern Ukraine have reportedly stepped up their military operations to take control of a government-held airport in the volatile city of Donetsk.
The Ukrainian military said on Thursday that pro-Russia forces launched fresh attacks in the areas near the airport situated northwest of Donetsk, using tanks, multiple-launch rocket systems and mortars.
Seven Libyan soldiers were killed and 50 wounded in a double suicide bombing and clashes in the eastern city of Benghazi on Thursday, an army commander said.
Libya is being racked by violence as the armed groups which helped topple Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 turn their guns on each other in a struggle to dominate politics and the country’s vast oil resources.
Kurdish fighters backed by US-led coalition airstrikes were locked in fierce fighting on Wednesday to prevent a key Syrian border town falling into the hands of ISIL militants.
It came as 41 children were reported dead in twin bombings that hit a school in the government-controlled central city of Homs, which has been devastated by the three-year civil war.
Turkey deployed 35 armored vehicles, including at least a dozen tanks, to the border with Syria on Monday as Islamist extremists closed in on the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobane, raining shells from two directions.
At least two mortar rounds landed on the Turkish side of the border, but it was unclear whether Turkey would intervene to prevent the capture of the city, which was under heavy bombardment Monday night. At least 160,000 Syrian refugees, with more waiting to cross, have entered Turkey in the past week as the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, pushed toward the city.