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Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqmi) has appointed one of its members to head the terrorist group to replace Abdelmalek Droukdel, killed last June during a French military operation in northern Mali.
The new leader from Algeria is an influential member of Aqmi, named Abu Obaida Yusuf al-Annabi.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed gave Tigrayan regional forces 72 hours to surrender before the military begins an offensive on the regional capital of Mekelle.
“We urge you to surrender peacefully within 72 hours, recognising that you are at the point of no return,” Abiy said in a Twitter message on Sunday evening.
Rebel forces from Ethiopia’s Tigray region have fired rockets into the city of Bahir Dar in the neighbouring Amhara region but caused no casualties or damage, Amhara’s government says, as federal forces move towards the Tigray capital.
“The illegal TPLF group have launched a rocket attack around 1.40am in Bahir Dar,” Amhara regional government’s communications office said on its Facebook page on Friday.
The Polisario Front, the organisation seeking independence for the disputed territory of Western Sahara, said this weekend it had launched attacks on Moroccan forces after ending a 30-year ceasefire.
The rebel group, which is backed by neighbouring Algeria, said on Saturday that “attacks of the Sahrawi People’s Liberation Army units continue against various hiding places of the Moroccan enemy along its positions in the occupied parts of the Sahrawi territory, causing loss of lives and equipments and disrupting its military plans”.
Ethiopian federal troops are closing in on Tigray’s capital of Mekelle, Redwan Hussein, the government spokesperson for the state of emergency task force, told CNN on Wednesday.
As the fighting between Ethiopian and Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) soldiers rages in the region for a second week, Redwan said that national defense forces have now taken control of Shire, northwest of Mekelle, and Alamata, south of the city.
Six people died on Tuesday in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a restaurant near a police academy, a police spokesman and a witness said.
It was unclear who was behind the attack.
Rebellious forces from Ethiopia’s Tigray region fired rockets at the airport in Eritrea’s capital Asmara on Saturday evening, their leader said on Sunday, confirming earlier reports of a major escalation in a 12-day old conflict in Ethiopia.
“Fighting is still continuing on several fronts” in Ethiopia, Debretsion Gebremichael told Reuters in a text message.