A suicide bomber and several gunmen staged a brazen attack on the Afghan parliament on June 22, killing two civilians in an assault claimed by the Taliban, while in the north a second district in two days fell to the militants.

Police said later that the attackers had been killed and all lawmakers were safe, but the large-scale assault on parliament and the loss of ground in the north underscored the challenges posed by Taliban militants following the departure of most foreign forces at the end of last year.

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Al-Shabaab militants launched a major suicide attack on Sunday against a military intelligence base in the capital Mogadishu, setting off a car bomb before storming inside, security officials said.

Somalia’s interior ministry said the three attackers were all killed in the raid, and that Somali security forces who fought them suffered no casualties.

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An alliance of Tuareg-led rebels and the Malian government signed a peace deal on Saturday meant to draw a line under a 2012 uprising and allow the authorities to focus on tackling Islamist militants in the desert north.

The Algerian-brokered deal, signed by a representative of the rebel Coordination of Movements of Azawad (CMA), grants greater autonomy to sparsely populated northern Mali in a bid to end a cycle of four uprisings since independence from France in 1960.

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Egyptian government forces have carried out separate operations in the violence-plagued Sinai Peninsula, killing more than a dozen Takfiri militants.

A local security source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said on Saturday that army tanks and artillery units pounded the bases of Velayat Sinai militants, previously known as Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, south of the town of Sheikh Zuweid, located about 334 kilometers (214 miles) northeast of the capital, Cairo, on Friday, killing 15 extremists.

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Members of the biggest Muslim rebel group in the Philippines began to lay down their arms on Tuesday in a process policy makers hope will bring to an end more than four decades of violence in the country’s second-biggest island.

President Benigno Aquino and members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front attended a ceremony in Mindanao ahead of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. The turnover of weapons is part of a peace agreement signed in March 2014 by the Aquino government with the secessionist group.

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Yemeni officials and witnesses say heavy airstrikes by Saudi-led coalition warplanes pounded positions of Shiite rebels and allied forces, killing not only rebel fighters but at least 10 civilians in northern Yemen.

Explosions rocked the capital Sanaa, the southern city of Aden and the provinces of Lahj and Jouf early Friday morning, officials and witnesses said.

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Chad’s military announced it had carried out air strikes against Boko Haram bases in Nigeria in retaliation for twin suicide bombings in the Chadian capital N’Djamena this week that killed at least 38 people.

The air raids caused heavy human and material damage to six of the Islamist militants’ bases, the military said late on Wednesday (Thursday NZT), without providing further details.

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