Dozens of combatants, including 26 pro-government fighters, were killed on Saturday in clashes and air strikes that erupted in northwestern Syria, a UK-based activist group has said.
The latest escalation in fighting came as Russian-backed government forces tried to retake two villages seized by militant groups earlier this month, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Israeli aircraft attacked a Hamas target in the Gaza Strip on Thursday after a Palestinian rocket strike, the Israeli military said, in the first serious cross-border flare-up since a surge in fighting last month.
A second rocket launched in the evening hit a house in the Israeli border town of Sderot but caused no casualties, police said. There was no immediate comment from Palestinian factions.
The Saudi-led military coalition vowed to respond firmly to a missile attack by Yemeni Houthi forces on a civilian airport in southern Saudi Arabia on Wednesday which wounded 26 people.
The Western-backed alliance that has been battling the Iran-aligned Houthi movement in Yemen said the early morning attack proved Tehran’s support for what it called cross-border terrorism.
An Islamic State terrorist was killed Saturday in a firefight with Iraqi security forces in Diyala province, a security source said.
Speaking to Mawazin News, the source said that security forces clashed with an Islamic State member on the outskirts of Mandali town in Balad Ruz district, Diyala, leaving him dead.
Jihadists in northwestern Syria on Thursday launched an attack on government forces killing at least 11 fighters, a war monitor said, following a series of regime advances in the area.
The deadly assault in a northern strip of Hama province, comes amid an escalation in violence in parts of the country’s northwest held by Syria’s former al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).