At least 23 Indian security forces were killed in an ambush by Maoist militants in the central state of Chattisgarh, officials said on Sunday, reviving concerns around a decades-old insurgency that appeared to have been largely contained in recent years.

A large force of Indian security personnel had been carrying out a clearance operation in a densely forested area on the edges of the Bijapur district when they were ambushed by the insurgents on Saturday in a firefight that lasted four hours.

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The militant group al-Shabaab has launched attacks on Somali military forces in Lower Shabelle region, Somali regional officials said.

The attacks in the early hours of Saturday, around 4 a.m. local time, targeted military bases in the towns of Barire and Awdhegle in southern Somalia.

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Clashes are likely to continue in Kachin state even after the junta unilaterally announced a ceasefire on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) has said.

The coup regime claimed it would cease all military operations from Thursday in order to hold negotiations with ethnic armed groups, but KIA information officer General Naw Bu said the Myanmar military had not stopped its activities in Kachin.

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A Catholic priest and at least six others were killed by gunmen in an attack on St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Benue State, Nigeria, the Diocese of Katsina-Ala confirmed Wednesday.

Fr. Ferdinand Fanen Ngugban had just offered Mass in his parish church of St. Paul Ayetwar in eastern Nigeria and was preparing to leave for the Holy Week Chrism Mass when he was shot in the head by gunmen on March 30.

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The Portuguese news agency said a bilateral agreement calling for a total of 60 special forces troops to Mozambique was being finalised.

Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva also told the state TV channel RTP late Monday that a team of “around 60” soldiers were “getting ready” to be sent to Portugals’s former colony “in the coming weeks”.

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