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Dozen of Algerian jihadists have arrived in the Malian city of Timbuktu to support armed Islamist groups who are imposing an increasingly brutal version of sharia law in the vast northern areas under their control, security sources said Sunday.
The latest influx of foreigners joining the Al-Qaeda linked Islamists was revealed as interim authorities in Bamako postponed a key conference to plan the country’s transition back to democracy and tackle the crisis in the occupied north.
Spain’s right-leaning government flatly rejected Sunday an offer by armed Basque group ETA to negotiate its disarmament and dissolution.
ETA, blamed for 829 killings in more than four decades of fighting for a Basque homeland, said Saturday it was ready to discuss disarming and disbanding with France and Spain under certain conditions.
The group, which last year said it had abandoned violence, said in a statement on Basque newspaper Gara’s website that one outstanding issue was the transfer of Basque prisoners to jails closer to home.
But Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s Popular Party government refused to consider talks with ETA.
Basque separatist group ETA may disarm and disband, if able to successfully negotiate the release of prisoners with the Spanish government.
The group has released a statement saying they are also willing to demilitarise the Basque region of Euskadi.
Among others, ETA may want to talk about the release of Izaskun Lesak, a suspected ETA leader arrested in France in October.
Armed clashes reportedly broke out Saturday in Somalia’s southern port city of Kimayo, a town formerly held by Islamists about 500 Km (310 Miles) south of Mogadishu.
Witnesses said heavily armed unknown militias have stormed bases manned by Kenyan forces in the heart of the city late on Friday night, causing unconfirmed human losses.
Local residents reported that the attack raged on for several hours and the Kenyan army managed to fend off the assault from their positions.
Rebels advanced in eastern Congo on Friday after repelling a counter-attack by government forces, trying to strengthen their grip before a summit on defusing the crisis in a region long plagued by ethnic and political conflict.
Fighters from the M23 group, who are widely thought to be backed by neighbouring Rwanda, pushed south along Lake Kivu near the new rebel stronghold of Goma on the Rwandan border.
In Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, protesters accused the rebels of abuses including the rape of pregnant women while the United Nations reported killings of civilians and kidnappings.
The Afghan military authorities in the south of the country reported the killing of 65 armed Taliban and arresting of 80 others during the military operation.
This operation launched under the name of “Kalak Hod” in some parts of Kandahar, Urozgan and Zabul provinces with participation of 1500 Afghan military men.
Col. Abdul Hamid commander of 205 Atal army crops told Bakhtar News Agency, during this operation 65 armed Taliban killed including several commanders and tens others injured.
At least 19 militias and one South Sudan army (SPLA) soldier died on Monday, when the two forces clashed in Pibor County of South Sudan’s Jonglei State, the military said.
The incident in Linkwangule Payam [district], according to the SPLA’s spokesperson, started on Monday night, when a group composed of about 50 militias loyal to renegade David Yau Yau, stormed a United Nations compound in Linkwangule, and requested them to evacuate the area before 10AM Tuesday.