Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) jihadists in northern Syria have launched a campaign targeting the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an American ally, a U.K.-based monitor group warned on Tuesday.

Citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which uses a network of sources on the ground to monitor the conflict, the Agency France-Presse (AFP) news agency described weekend clashes between ISIS and the SDF as “counter-attacks” mounted by ISIS “from their embattled holdout in eastern Syria.”

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Russian border patrol ships attacked and seized three Ukrainian vessels on Sunday near the Kerch Strait, off the coast of Kremlin-annexed Crimea. While Russia described the attack as a legitimate reaction to Ukrainian vessels violating its territorial waters, Kiev called it an unprovoked act of Russian aggression.

In the aftermath of the incident, the first open clash between Ukrainian and Russian forces, lawmakers in Kiev voted for martial law to be imposed in regions bordering with Russia.

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Somalia was hit by two violent attacks Monday, one killing an Islamic cleric and 17 of his followers for playing music and a second killing at least six people in a car bomb blast in the capital, Mogadishu, police said.

The car bomb was detonated Monday at a busy junction in Mogadishu’s Wadajir district, said Capt. Mohamed Hussein. He said 15 people were injured and the blast appears to have been aimed at soldiers who were gathered at the junction.

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An Army soldier and six militants were killed in a gunfight in south Kashmir’s Shopian district on Sunday, officials said.

A civilian was also killed, while over a dozen were injured in clashes that broke out at the encounter site following the gunfight, the officials said.

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The official death toll has risen in an attack on a police station in the southeastern Libyan oasis town of Tazirbu, which authorities are attributing to Islamic State radicals.

In a Saturday statement, the United Nations said at least eight civilians were killed in the attack a day earlier, with nine wounded, three abducted and nine still missing and believed to be kidnapped.

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Armed separatists stormed the Chinese Consulate in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi on Friday, triggering an intense hour-long shootout during which two Pakistani civilians, two police officers and all three assailants were killed, including one who was wearing a suicide vest, Pakistani officials said.

The brazen assault, claimed by a militant group from the southwestern province of Baluchistan, reflected the separatists’ attempt to strike at the heart of Pakistan’s close ties with major ally China, which has invested heavily into road and transportation projects in the country, including in Baluchistan.

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Seven local employees of a French drilling firm and a government official were killed Thursday when suspected Boko Haram gunmen stormed the compound where they were sleeping in southeastern Niger.

The attack shattered months of relative calm in the Diffa region near the Lake Chad basin, a strategic area where the borders of four countries converge.

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