US President Donald Trump told Russia in an early morning tweet to prepare for “nice and new and ’smart!’” missile attacks in Syria after an alleged gas attack on the last rebel stronghold in the country.

The tweet came after the Russian ambassador to Lebanon said in an interview on Tuesday with Hezbollah-owned al-Manar TV that “if there is a US missile attack, we - in line with both Putin and Russia’s chief of staff’s remarks - will shoot down US rockets and even the sources that launched the missiles”.

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Russia’s Defense Ministry has blamed Israel for the missile attack that left at least 14 dead in Syria early Monday morning, USA Today reported.

But Syrian media blamed the U.S. for the attack.

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French and Malian troops killed about 30 Islamist insurgents during a gunbattle in a region near the border with Niger, where Islamic State are known to be active, the French army said on Thursday.

West Africa’s arid Sahel region has seen a rise in violence by militant groups, some with links to al-Qaeda and Islamic State, that is drawing an increasingly aggressive response from countries including France and the United States.

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Russian air strikes killed 37 civilians in the Arbin area of the shrinking rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus overnight, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said yesterday.

Eastern Ghouta’s six-year rebel rule was in its dying moments as fighters evacuated one of the Syrian enclave’s three remaining pockets and a deal was reached for another.

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35 members of the Estonian Defence Forces (EDF) will be deploying to Afghanistan in May, where they will serve in the framework of the NATO-led Operation Resolute Support.

“Estonia has decided to increase its contribution to NATO’s Operation Resolute Support in Afghanistan, and according to plan, an infantry platoon and logistics personnel will begin serving in Afghanistan this May,” EDF spokesperson Capt. Arvo Jõesalu told ERR.

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