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Iraqi government forces, with air and ground support from the U.S.-led coalition, launched an offensive on Monday to drive Islamic State from the northern city of Mosul, the militants’ last major stronghold in the country.
Helicopters released flares overhead and explosions could be heard on the city’s eastern front, where Kurdish fighters moved forward to take outlying villages, a Reuters correspondent said.
Free Syrian Army forces captured Dabiq from ISIS in northern rural Aleppo. Photo: FSA
The Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) said its forces captured Dabiq on Sunday, a town with great symbolic importance to ISIS in Syria’s north.
“Free Syrian Army forces have taken control of the strategic town of Dabiq in the northern Aleppo countryside after violent clashes with Daesh (ISIS),” the FSA said in a tweet.
Heavy clashes between pro-government forces and IS occurred in Libya’s Sirte on Friday, killing at least 14 of the government fighters, media office of the government forces announced on its Facebook post.
Misrata’s hospital confirmed the casualties, saying that injured government fighters have also rushed to the hospital.
Twelve Egyptian conscripts were killed and six others injured after unidentified armed assailants opened fire on a security checkpoint, said Egypt’s Armed Forces spokesperson in a statement.
According to the spokesperson, the attack targeted the Zakdan checkpoint, south of the Egyptian town Bir El-Abd.
Up to 15 attackers were also killed in the attack after security forces returned fire. Others were reportedly injured in the attack.
Turkey’s military targeted a headquarters of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) near the city of Tel Abyad in northern Syria.
“The Turkish artillery bombed the YPG-held village of Khenitiya in Tel Abyad countryside, targeting a YPG security office,” YPG officer Salih Watti told ARA News. The attack, which took place in the afternoon on Wednesday, only caused material damage. No casualties were reported.
Fighters from Central African Republic’s largely Muslim Seleka militia attacked refugees in the country’s remote north on Wednesday, stabbing or hacking to death 13 people before U.N. peacekeepers repelled them, killing at least 10, officials said.
Several people were also wounded in the attack targeting the Kaga Bandoro, a town of dirt roads and thatched mud huts. A Reuters witness saw militiamen stab two refugees to death as people were fleeing. When some tried to fight back with clubs, the militiamen began firing their guns.
Several gunmen opened fire at the Imam Ali Shrine in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul late on Tuesday night, killing at least 14 people and wounding 36 others. The Imam Ali shrine is in the vicinity of the western Karte Sakhi area of the city.
Khamma News quoted Ministry of Interior spokesman Sediq Sediqi, as saying that the area has been cleared and the last attacker was shot dead. Sediqi further added that the number of casualties will be released later.