Government air strikes on a rebel-held village east of Damascus today killed 32 civilians, including six children, a monitoring group said, denouncing what it called a massacre.

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Yemen’s information minister says Shiite Houthi rebels are shelling the residence of the country’s president as they also swept into the presidential palace in the capital, Sanaa.

The minister, Nadia al-Sakkaf posted on her Twitter account on Tuesday that President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi home in downtown Sanaa has come under “heavy shelling since 3:00 PM by armed forces positioned over rooftops facing his house.”

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Kurdish fighters battling the Islamic State militant group in Syria’s Kobane have captured a strategic hilltop, giving them line of fire over the town, a monitor said Monday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Kurdish People’s People Units (YPG) had seized the Mishtenur hilltop after fierce clashes overnight. “The military operation led to the deaths of at least 11 Islamic State fighters, and the seizure of large quantities of weapons and ammunition,” the Observatory said.

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Yemeni authorities say a ceasefire deal has been reached following fierce clashes between army forces and Houthi Shia fighters near the presidential palace in capital Sanaa.

Gunfire and explosions were heard in the region around the palace for several hours.

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Six Hezbollah fighters were killed Sunday in an Israeli airstrike on the Syrian side of the Golan, including the son of assassinated senior commander Imad Mughniyeh.

The deaths were announced after an Israeli security source told AFP that an Israeli helicopter conducted a strike against “terrorists” near Quneitra, on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.

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