 | Wars in the World |
Daily News on Wars in the World and on New States
| FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK X FLIPBOARD TELEGRAM |
Rebels started to retreat from Congo’s eastern provincial capital on Saturday after an attempt to garner ammunition at the airport failed and their original pullout was postponed, a U.N. official said.
Trucks full of M23 rebels drove along the road that leads out of Goma toward Kibumba, where the rebels are supposed to settle following an agreement reached in Kampala last week with nations bordering Congo. M23 soldiers were cheering as they did a final tour in the city center.
The main road connecting the Syrian capital of Damascus with the city’s airport was open but no flights were operating on Friday, according to the opposition group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Fighting again between rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad disrupted much of the capital and there was no Internet service throughout much of Syria for a second-straight day.
Fighting killed another 31 people across the country on Friday, according to an opposition group that counts casualties.
Ansar Dine, an Islamist group linked to al-Qaeda has moved into a town near Mali’s border with Mauritania after separatist Tuareg rebels withdrew without a fight, an Islamist spokesman said on Thursday.
Islamist fighters from several groups have taken over an initial uprising by Tuareg MNLA rebels since an uneasy alliance of armed groups seized control of the north in March after a military coup paralyzed the central government.
Syrian rebels claim they shot down a MiG fighter jet not far from the Syrian-Turkish border on Wednesday. Along with the downing of a military helicopter on Tuesday, it would appear to be one of the first times rebels have successfully used a kind of weapon called a MANPAD, or portable, shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missile that can hit a plane in fight.
The development would mark a turning point in the rebels’ bid to unseat Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Rebels say the Russian-made MiG fighter jet was shot down Wednesday morning near the town of Daarat Azzah, on the road north of the embattled city of Aleppo.
Three armed Taliban militants were killed and 5 others wounded in combined operation of Afghan and NATO forces in Nahersaraj district of Helmand province.
Fareed Ahmad Farhang spokesman of Helmand security commandment said to BNA, the Afghan and NATO forces conducted operation in Nashersaraj district of Helmand province, in which 3 armed Taliban militants were killed and 5 others wounded.
The political chief of Congolese rebel group M23 says his forces will leave the captured city of Goma by Friday as a sign of good will, even if the government has not addressed their grievances.
The rebels seized the eastern city last week and have since taken the town of Sake to the west.
Jean-Marie Runiga of M23 told VOA News Tuesday that if regional leaders think the departure will help bring peace, than they will do so by the end of the week. Runiga said even if M23 withdraws it does not mean the group will back down on its demands for foreign groups and the Congolese army to leave the region
Syrian warplanes have bombed a rebel headquarters near the Turkish border, missing their target but sending hundreds of Syrians fleeing across the frontier.
Monday’s attack on the Free Syrian Army (FSA) base in Atima, two kilometres from the border, came a day before Turkish and NATO officials were due to start assessing where to station surface-to-air missiles close to the 900km border.
Ahmed, an opposition activist who lives within a few blocks of the base, said: “Two Syrian fighter jets came and fired five rockets. Three have hit farm areas and another two hit buildings near the base.”