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Militants overrun an army base in northeastern Nigeria, killing more than 30 soldiers before pulling back in the face of air strikes, sources said.
The attackers were believed to belong to the regional offshoot of Islamic State. They hit the base in Mainok town in northeast Borno state on Sunday afternoon, three soldiers and a local resident told Reuters.
Rebels in northern Chad are ready to observe a ceasefire and to discuss a political settlement after the battlefield death of President Idriss Deby last week, a rebel spokesman said on Sunday.
The rebels, known as the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), came over the northern border from Libya on April 11 calling for an end to Deby’s 30-year rule. They reached as close as 200-300 km (125-185 miles) from the capital N’Djamena, before the rebels were pushed back by the army.
Chad’s long-serving President Idriss Deby has died from injuries sustained in clashes with rebels, the army said in a surprise announcement Tuesday, plunging a volatile region deeper into crisis.
Army spokesman Azem Bermendao Agouna told state TV said Deby — a longtime Western ally in efforts to quell Islamist militias in north Africa — died “as a result of his injuries on the front line.” Reuters said Deby had been visiting troops fighting rebels in the north of the country.
The Chadian army said on Monday it had killed 300 rebels who waged a major incursion into the north of the country eight days ago, adding that it had lost five of its soldiers.
A heavily armed rebel group launched a raid from its rear base in Libya on April 11, the same day as Chad’s presidential election that is expected to see the incumbent Idriss Deby Itno poised to extend his 30-year rule.
Eritrea has admitted its troops are involved in the war in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region but vowed to pull them out amid mounting international pressure.
The country’s first acknowledgement of its role in the fighting came in a letter from its UN ambassador to the Security Council, which was posted online by the Eritrea’s information minister on Friday night.
Puntland state has warned against ongoing security crisis along the border with Somaliland, which has often caused rifts between Garowe and Hargeisa, with both parties claiming territories in Sanaag and Sool, which are located in the far north.
For the past few months, heavy fighting has been recorded in Shidan town along the border where two clans have been fighting against each other the territorial dispute, leading to an adverse humanitarian crisis, which has affected thousands.
The Polisario Front’s police chief has been killed in the disputed Western Sahara region, a statement from the separatists said Wednesday.
“The commander of the national gendarmerie Addah al-Bendir fell on Tuesday as a martyr on the field of honour,” the pro-independence movement’s defence ministry said in a statement.