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Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) said Saturday they repelled an attack by the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in North Darfur state and killed 45 members of the assailant rebel force.
After long months of relative calm since the signing of framework document to end the nine-year conflict in western Sudan in July 2011, Darfur is gradually becoming again a theatre of violence between rebel groups and the government forces.
The second wave of peacekeeping force from Djibouti has landed in Somalia’s central town of Beledweyne on Friday to replace Ethiopian troops and help bring stability in the troubled Hiiraan region.
Some 50 soldiers were welcomed by regional and tribal leaders as a part of a planned deployment by African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) to expand peacekeeping to central Somalia.
The deployment comes days after a commander from Djibouti forces serving under AMISIOM in Mogadishu visited Beledweyne on Wednesday to assess the situation on the ground.
Kenyan soldiers, as part of African Union forces in Somalia, captured the key al-Shabaab-controlled town of Afmadow on Wednesday, according to a Kenyan Defence Force spokesman.
“We now control Afmadow with our troops,” Maj. Emmanuel Chirchir told CNN.
The operation started early Wednesday, he said, with KDF forces capturing the town of Hayo. Six al-Shabaab militants were killed in that operation.
“(The troops) then moved straight onto Afmadow,” said Chirchir.
United Nations have confirmed that Sudan army has withdrew from Abyei region, contested with South Sudan, putting end to a year of occupation.
Fourty-eight hours after its announcement, fusion’s project between tuareg rebels and islamist group Ansar Dine in northern Mali has been blocked yesterday evening because of basic disagreements, including application of islamic law.
Sudan says it is ready to pull its soldiers out of the contested Abyei region, former US president Jimmy Carter said after meeting Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir on Sunday.
“He has notified the negotiators he’s ready to withdraw troops from Abyei, which we believe is a major step forward,” Carter told reporters after he and Algeria’s former foreign minister Lakhdar Brahimi held talks with the Sudanese president.
The two met Bashir as members of The Elders, a group of global leaders chaired by Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu, ahead of a planned resumption of talks between Sudan and South Sudan on Tuesday in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
The two rebel groups that seized control of the northern half of Mali announced Saturday that they have agreed to fuse their movements and work together to create an independent Islamic state on the territory they occupy, a signatory to the agreement said.
Alghabass Ag Intalla, one of the leaders of Ansar Dine, which is fighting to create an Islamic state, confirmed that his movement was joining with the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad, a secular rebel group led by Tuareg separatists. They signed the agreement in the northern town of Gao on Saturday evening, and celebratory gunfire rang out in both Gao and Timbuktu, another town under their control, as fighters heard the news.