Members of three ethnic armed groups known as the Brotherhood Alliance have asked the Myanmar army not to exclude Rakhine State from a unilateral ceasefire from May 10 to Aug. 31 as the country is trying to control the coronavirus pandemic.

The Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), Arakan Army (AA) and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) issued a joint statement Sunday saying that the Myanmar army should not exclude Rakhine from its latest ceasefire, as it has in the past, as the military has ongoing offensives in Rakhine and in Chin State’s Paletwa Township, where many local people are suffering the impacts of the fighting.

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North Korea fired multiple gunshots towards the South in the Demilitarised Zone dividing the peninsula on Sunday, prompting South Korean troops to fire back, Seoul’s military said.

The rare exchange of gunfire comes following the reappearance a day earlier of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after a near three-week absence from the public eye that triggered intense speculation about his health.

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A suicide bomber killed at least three people and wounded 15 others after detonating explosives near a military outpost in Kabul on Wednesday, an official confirmed, in the first attack to rock the Afghan capital in weeks.

Interior ministry spokesman Tareq Arian confirmed the death count, calling the blast “a crime by the enemy of Afghanistan against civilians during the month of Ramadan”.

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Pakistani military officials say at least two soldiers from Pakistan’s army and nine militants were killed in a gun battle late on April 25 near the border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations, the military’s media wing, said on April 26 that five Pakistani soldiers also were injured in the clash that took place in the volatile tribal region of North Waziristan.

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The Bangsamoro regional police and the military’s Western Mindanao Command (Westmincom) have launched operations to identify and arrest the Abu Sayyaf Group bandits that encountered and killed 11 Army soldiers and wounded 14 others in Patikul, Sulu last Friday.

Westmincom commander Lt. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana said yesterday that the 11 slain troopers were members of the Delta Company of the Army’s 21st Infantry Battalion that is part of the units trying to clear Sulu of Abu Sayyaf terrorists. Officials said 14 other soldiers were wounded.

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