An Algerian soldier was killed during a clash with armed Islamists in the central region of Ain Defla, the defence ministry said Sunday, adding that an operation was still underway. An army detachment clashed with “an armed terrorist group”, during an ambush Saturday in the Gaadet Lahdjar area, in the prefecture of Ain Defla, killing corporal Mostafa Znanda, the ministry said in a statement.

Algerian authorities use the term “terrorist” to describe armed Islamists who have been active in the country since the early 1990s. Security measures have been taken to seal and search the area and pursue the “criminals”, the ministry added.

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Jihadists reported to be linked to the Islamic State group killed dozens of people in the latest of a spate of bloody attacks in northeast Nigeria, local sources said Sunday.

Inhabitants of remote Goni Usmanti village told AFP that fighters gunned down 38 people in a raid on Saturday and set a truck ablaze killing an unknown number of passengers.

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At least three people died in the tension-prone Gedo on Wednesday after fierce clashes between Jubaland Regional Forces and the al-Shabaab militants, reports indicate, in the fight that lasted for a couple of hours.

Five others were critically injured during the battle and have since been taken to hospitals, officials said, but the al-Shabaab militants who were arrested are set to be presented to authorities for trial over war crimes in the Gedo region.

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At least 81 people were killed in an attack on a village by suspected Boko Haram militants in northeast Nigeria, the Borno state government said in a statement released to CNN Wednesday.

Residents said the men attacked the village in armored tanks and trucks filled with guns, according to the government’s statement.

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Libya’s internationally-recognised government has promised to retake the country’s east after launching an offensive to capture the strategic city of Sirte from the eastern-based forces of renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar.

On Saturday, forces allied with the Government of National Accord (GNA) launched the offensive to seize Sirte, a key gateway to the country’s main oil fields in the east, from Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) forces which took the city in January.

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Droukdel was killed on Thursday near the Algerian border, where the group has bases from which it has carried out attacks and abductions of Westerners in the sub-Saharan Sahel zone, Parly said.

“Many close associates” of Droukdel – who commanded several affiliate jihadist groups across the lawless region – were also “neutralised”, she added.

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At least 16 people, including women and children, were killed by militiamen late Wednesday in an attack in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, according to local media.

The raid by members of the armed political-religious sect the Cooperative for the Development of Congo (CODECO) took place in Moussa village in Ituri province.

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