Iraqi security forces on Tuesday recaptured a large district in western the city of Ramadi, seized earlier by the Islamic State (IS) militant group, while a total of 39 people were killed in fierce clashes and air strikes against the extremist militants in and near Ramadi in Iraq’s western province of Anbar, a provincial security source said.

Iraqi security forces and allied Sunni paramilitary tribal fighters stormed al-Ta’mim district in the western part of Anbar’s provincial capital city of Ramadi, some 110 km west of Baghdad, after heavy house-to-house clashes, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

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Yemeni security officials say airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition targeting Yemen’s Shiite rebels and ground clashes have killed and wounded dozens in the southwestern port city of Mokha.

Tuesday’s battle was over a key military base located along a vital road to the heavily contested western city of Taiz. The officials say 35 pro-government fighters and rebels died.

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Airstrikes by the US and its allies have killed at least 32 members of the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group inside Syria.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a Sunday statement that “more than 15 explosions” hit Daesh-held positions near Raqqa, the de facto capital of the terrorists.

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Groups that have received support from the United States or its allies have turned their guns on each other in a northern corner of Syria, highlighting the difficulties of mobilizing forces on the ground against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

As they fought among themselves before reaching a tenuous cease-fire on Thursday, ISIL meanwhile edged closer to the town of Azaz that was the focal point of the clashes near the border with Turkey.

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Yemeni security officials on Sunday said a huge explosion has killed the governor of Aden and six of his bodyguards, AP reports.

Islamic State (IS), which has a growing presence in Yemen since its civil war broke out, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Gov. Jaafar Mohamed Saad was traveling to his office in a convoy on Sunday morning when the explosion took place in the Rimbaud area of the southern port city, officials said.

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