Syrian army forces killed at least 35 people in intense shelling of central Homs Sunday, activists said, as opposition forces appeared to escalate operations in other rebel hubs and around the capital Damascus.

The renewed assault on Homs and other rebel areas came as the newly elected head of the exiled opposition Syrian National Council called for decisive action from the international community to “stop the killing machine in a decisive decision under [United Nations] Chapter 7.”

Kurdish activist Abdelbasset Sayda, who was named head of the SNC in Istanbul Sunday, also called on all members of the Damascus regime to defect.

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Mali’s Tuareg rebels clashed overnight with their former religious allies, witnesses said Friday, after the two groups fell out over forming a breakaway state in the northern desert region they control.

The clash involving automatic weapons near the remote regional capital Kidal was the first between the rebel National Liberation Movement of Azawad (MNLA) and Ansar Dine. Both groups are made up of Tuareg tribesmen from different various clans and the fighting has raised fears of widening chaos in the vast northern swathe of the country.

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A bomb blast at the entrance of the police headquarters of northeast Nigeria’s Borno state killed many people on Friday, mostly police, witnesses and security officials said.

A police officer at the scene, who could not be named, said five police vans had been loaded with the dead.

“Many people, mostly members of the police, which include men and women, were killed in the explosion,” said witness Ali Alhaji in the city of Maiduguri, the focal point of an insurgency by Islamist sect Boko Haram.

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Soldiers of the Democratic Republic of Congo army and rebels have clashed at an army base in the country’s east, killing at least 19 people in the latest outbreak of violence that has forced tens of thousands to flee their homes.

DRC officials said on Wednesday that the attack had been carried out by Mai Mai fighters, linked to former rebels who were at one point integrated into the army but deserted in recent weeks over the government’s decision to arrest a renegade general, Bosco Ntaganda.

Their uprising is believed to have dragged in armed fighters from neighbouring Rwanda, complicating fragile relations between the two neighbours. Clashes in the last two months have forced more than 100,000 people to flee their homes.

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The Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan’s separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region said that one of its soldiers was killed and two wounded in shootouts with Azerbaijani forces overnight.

The statement says the incident occurred when “Azerbaijani troops attempted to enter the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Baku considers Nagorno-Karabakh — an ethnic Armenian separatist enclave — its territory.

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A military official confirmed on Sunday that at least six militants linked to al-Qaeda were killed and others were wounded when army troops repelled an attack launched by militants on a branch of the Central Bank as well as on other institutions in Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan governorate, in a bid to gain control of the city.

The unidentified official told the state-run news website that clashes with the militants lasted from 5 to 7 a.m. Sunday, and the troops managed to repel the militants’ attack and to kill some of them.

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Tripoli’s international airport was occupied by militia from the western town of Tarhuna on Monday, in retaliation for the kidnapping of their commander, Abu-Alija Habshi, by unknown assailants on Sunday afternoon.

The arrival of government-controlled security forces late this afternoon has resulted in a gun-battle that saw the government retake control of the airport, with a number of militia reportedly captured.

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