Three “well-known” commanders of Al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate formerly known as Al-Nusra Front, including one who planned attacks on Aleppo, were killed in Russian strikes launched from aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, a Defense Ministry spokesman said.

“As a result of strikes delivered by Su-33 carrier-based fighter jets and air group of the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, a large gang of the Jabhat al-Nusra group was destroyed in the province of Idlib,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Thursday.

[Read more…]

ETA leader Mikel Irastorza has been arrested in a joint Spanish-French operation. The Basque separatist​ group’s ranks have been diminished by arrests despite a ceasefire.

A security operation conducted by French and Spanish authorities led to the arrest of the leader of the Basque militant group ETA on Saturday, Spain’s Interior Ministry said.

The ministry described Mikel Irastorza as “currently the most senior leader of the terrorist group ETA still at large.” He was arrested in a house in the southwestern French village of Ascain, near the Pyrenees Mountains.

[Read more…]

A car bomb targeting a police station in southeastern Turkey has killed seven civilians and two police officers, according to state-run Anadolu news agency.

Earlier on Friday morning, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said 100 people were injured in the explosion, 93 of whom have since been released from hospitals.

[Read more…]

Turkey’s military targeted a headquarters of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) near the city of Tel Abyad in northern Syria.

“The Turkish artillery bombed the YPG-held village of Khenitiya in Tel Abyad countryside, targeting a YPG security office,” YPG officer Salih Watti told ARA News. The attack, which took place in the afternoon on Wednesday, only caused material damage. No casualties were reported.

[Read more…]

Police shot dead eight militants in Chechnya in southern Russia around midnight on Saturday after the men, traveling in two cars, opened fire when asked to stop at a checkpoint, the Interfax news agency reported on Sunday.

Moscow has fought two wars with separatists in Chechnya since the 1991 Soviet collapse and still faces a low-level insurgency in the mainly Muslim region in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus area.

[Read more…]