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Pakistan said Wednesday that it downed two Indian fighter jets and captured a pilot, escalating hostilities between the nuclear-armed neighbors a day after Indian warplanes struck inside Pakistani territory for the first time in five decades.
The rapid turn of events raised fears that the historical animosities between India and Pakistan could be steering them toward another war.
India says it launched airstrikes on a militant training camp in Pakistan on Tuesday, in a move that has sent tensions soaring between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
The airstrikes, according to the Indian government, hit a training camp of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), the group that claimed credit for a suicide car bomb attack killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police in Kashmir on February 14.
At least 19 people have been killed in southern Libya, according to a member of parliament, as forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar fought for control of oilfields in the region.
Speaking to Al Jazeera late on Sunday, Mohamed Linu, a member of Libya’s internationally recognised parliament, said Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) killed civilians, including children, and set fire to more than 30 houses in the southern city of Murzuq, including his own.
The United States military says it has killed two al-Shabaab extremists in four airstrikes in Somalia.
A U.S. Africa command statement Sunday said the attacks eliminated checkpoints used by al-Shabaab to collect taxes to fund their violent campaign in Somalia.
One soldier was killed and 20 others wounded Saturday in a Boko Haram rocket attack in the north east, just hours before voting began in Nigeria’s presidential election, security sources said.
A civilian militia source in Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, told AFP “at least 13” blasts were heard throughout the city at dawn, some two hours before voting opened at 0700 GMT.