Tragedy has struck Kenya as news of a brutal shopping mall massacre has rolled in overnight.

Armed men from the Al-Qaeda linked Somali terrorist organisation Al Shabaab descended the Westgate shopping complex in the Nairobi capital on Saturday afternoon, with current reports stating 39 people have been killed and 150 more have been injured. Al Shabaab confirmed their involvement behind the attacks via twitter; their account has since been suspended.

According to the ABC, the attack was, “retribution for Kenya’s operations against the group in Somalia.”

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Nigeria’s military said on Wednesday it had killed 150 insurgents, including a commander, in an operation against Islamist group Boko Haram in which 16 of its own forces were also killed.

Violence in northeast Nigeria has intensified over the past two months, as the Islamists fight back against a military operation that president Goodluck Jonathan ordered in May to try to crush their four-year rebellion.

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Security forces have arrested 45 people in an operation against Islamists in a town in Upper Egypt which has witnessed numerous attacks on Christians in recent weeks.

A temporary curfew was imposed in Dalja, Minya governorate, on Monday morning as police and army, accompanied by the air force, descended on the town.

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Congolese and UN troops have pushed back the M23 rebel group that had been entrenched in the hills above Goma and the rebels no longer pose a threat to the strategically important city in eastern Congo, the UN peacekeeping chief said Thursday.

Herve Ladsous called the military action a “very significant achievement” that inflicted casualties on the M23 and likely led the rebels to resume talks with the government in neighboring Uganda’s capital, Kampala.

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Malian soldiers clashed Wednesday with Tuareg rebels near the Mauritanian border, the first fighting to erupt since the two sides signed a peace accord in June. A Malian captain warned the clash could endanger the truce.

The Tuareg rebels have picked up arms against the African state of Mali three times since independence in 1960, but it was only last year that they succeeded in making significant gains. They were temporarily sidelined by radical jihadists operating in the area, though have grown in strength again since French-led forces largely ousted those Islamic militants last winter.

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At least 17 people were killed in a clash between suspected members of the Boko Haram sect and civilian vigilantes early Sunday in Nigeria’s restive Borno state, Xinhua reported.

Twelve vigilantes lost their lives in the attack while the civilian security guards killed five of the attackers, said residents in the Benisheik town in the Borno state.

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The Egyptian army launched an attack against Islamist militants in North Sinai on Saturday, killing at least nine people, security officials said.

Two Egyptian soldiers were killed late on Saturday when an improvised explosive device detonated in a road in the North Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweid near the border with the Gaza Strip, security sources said.

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