UAE-backed separatist fighters have seized a number of military camps in Yemen’s southern Abyan province, as fresh clashes with forces loyal to the country’s internationally recognised government caused multiple deaths and injuries.

The two sides are nominal allies in a Saudi-UAE-led military coalition battling the Houthi rebel movement after the latter took over the capital, Sanaa, and most major cities in 2014.

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Syrian opposition forces have withdrawn from the strategic town of Khan Sheikhoun, deep in the last rebel-held province.

Government forces, backed by Russia, closed in on the town in recent weeks, five years after rebels took over.

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China on Monday criticized recent attacks by an alliance of ethnic armed groups on police and military outposts in northern Myanmar’s Shan State, saying the actions derail the country’s peace process and create instability in the region.

At a press conference in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said China “strongly condemned” the attacks carried by the Northern Alliance (NA), an alliance of the ethnic armed groups the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), the Arakan Army (AA) and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA).

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The suicide bomber stood in the middle of the dancing, clapping crowd as hundreds of Afghan children and adults celebrated a wedding in a joyous release from Kabul’s strain of war.

Then, in a flash, he detonated his explosives-filled vest, killing dozens — and Afghanistan grieved again.

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Government and Russian airstrikes pounded the southern edge of a rebel stronghold in Syria’s northwest on Saturday, killing at least seven members of one family, activists and a war monitor reported.

The intense airstrikes were coupled with fierce ground clashes as the government, backed by Russia, pushed ahead with a months-old offensive seeking to chip away at territory on the periphery of the rebel enclave.

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