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.

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Ethiopian forces have killed 123 rebels in the eastern region of the country, an official has told the BBC.

The rebels are reportedly from the ONLF, fighting in Ethiopia’s Somali region.

They have been fighting Ethiopian control of the area since the 1970s.

A further 90 rebels are surrounded, says Abdi Mohamoud Omar, president of the Somali region of Ethiopia, and unless they surrender, further measures will be taken against them.

The force of around 200 rebels landed on the Red Sea coast on Saturday, the authorities in Somaliland said. They were then taken by truck to the Ethiopian border.

Factional fighting

Somaliland - which has declared independence from the rest of Somalia but has not been internationally recognised - has previously helped the Ethiopian government in its fight against the ONLF (Ogaden National Liberation Front).

Mr Abdi says his forces encircled the ONLF rebels in the remote Maar Maar mountains, which form the porous border region between Somaliland, Ethiopia and Djibouti.

A senior ONLF commander, known as Hassan Bossaso, was captured, Mr Abdi told the BBC.

Ethiopia blames its regional arch-enemy, Eritrea, for supporting the ONLF - an accusation Eritrea denies.

The ONLF wants self-determination for residents of Ethiopia’s Somali region, which is also known as Ogaden.

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According to local eyewitnesses a heavy war erupted between the Ethiopian troops and ONLF rebels near the Somaliland border on Tuesday and has displaced many in near by towns and villages.

An eyewitness told Somalilandpress that the clashes began midday in the Mar-mar mountains in Awdal region close to the Ethiopian border after the militants were surrounded.

They added the Somaliland army have also arrived in the region and is backing the Ethiopian army – each army is said to be shelling the militants from its side of the border.

No casualties have been reported but Ethiopia and Somaliland have vowed to eliminate the group from their regions.

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About 200 suspected rebels surrounded by Somaliland’s forces near the border with Ethiopia, a Somaliland minister has said.

Interior Minister Mohamed Abdi Gabose told the BBC the men had arrived in the territory by boat and then travelled overland to the border.

He said documents the men left behind suggest they belong to the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF).

Somaliland has declared its independence from the rest of Somalia.

Its secession has not been internationally recognised but is far more stable than the rest of the country and in July held an election which saw a peaceful handover of power.

Mr Gabose said the armed group were surrounded in the mountainous region which borders Ethiopia and Djibouti.

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Intense combat operations by Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) forces have continued in the Ogaden. ONLF forces targeted Ethiopian military bases, especially key enemy centres, inflicting heavy defeat on woyane [Ethiopian government] troops from which they can never recover.

Senior ONLF military officers told Ogaden Online reporters that fighting has mostly been taking place at army bases in the Ogaden. They added that the era when battles were fought in villages and rural areas was over.

The following is a report sent by Radio Freedom and Ogaden Online front-line correspondent on some of the battles that took place between August 16-29, 2010.

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A prison break by an armed group known as Boko Haram has raised fears of renewed violence in northern Nigeria just months before elections.

The group staged a raid on the prison on Tuesday night in the town of Bauchi, freeing more than 100 followers.

The attack left the prison in ruins and showed the group, which is seeking to institute sharia (Islamic law) in the country, had access to the sophisticated weapons it needed to overpower prison guards.

Nigeria’s interior minister said on Wednesday the rebels had “overwhelming firepower” and guards were unable to stop them.

“Due to the overwhelming firepower which the attackers deployed on their mission, they were easily able to overcome the stiff resistance which was put up by the gallant prison officers who attempted to block the progress of the assault on the prison,” Emmanuel Ihenacho, the minister, said.

The attackers, wielding AK-47 assault rifles, fired on the prison guards as they were breaking their daily Ramadan fast on Tuesday evening, Al Jazeera’s Yvonne Ndege reported from Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.

Between 800 and 900 of the prisoners broke out of the jail, including 200 inmates believed to be Boko Haram members, Ndege said. Four people were wounded in the clash.

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At least eight people have been killed in bomb blasts at the main airport in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, witnesses have said.

The victims in Thursday’s blasts included African Union (AU) peacekeeping troops.

Witnesses said a suicide bomber rammed a car into an AU peacekeepers post outside the airport and that they heard a second explosion inside the compound shortly afterwards.

A spokesman with the African Union confirmed the car bomb attack.

Mohamed Abdi, a shopkeeper, told Reuters news agency: “I have seen four bleeding AU soldiers being carried at the gate. At least eight dead bodies, most of them Amisom soldiers were lying on the ground.”

Two women begging in the street were also killed and one policeman was wounded, said Abdul Rahman Yussef, a Somali army official.

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