Five police and five civilians were killed in an attack by members of the ethnic Kokang Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) in Laukkai — the administrative capital of the ethnic Kokang region of Shan State — according to a report issued from Burma’s State Counselor’s Office.

The State Counselor Office Information Committee reported that the MNDAA attacked a hotel in the town near the Chinese border early on Monday morning, burning four cars near the hotel site.

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Yemeni security officials say that al-Qaida militants have killed 11 soldiers in two separate attacks.

They say that the Sunday attacks killed six troops at a security checkpoint in the southern coastal city of Shukra in Abyan province, and another five in the province of Hadramawt.

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Three prominent Islamic extremist groups in Mali have announced they have merged into one and pledged allegiance to al-Qaida’s leader, according to an organisation that monitors jihadist websites.

Leaders from Ansar Dine, al-Mourabitoun and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb made the declaration in a video distributed on Friday, according to SITE Intelligence Group.

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Clashes between Peshmerga forces and the Sinjar Protection Units erupted near Sinjar, a town in Iraqi Kurdistan, local Kurdish sources reported.

Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani, belonging to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), is known to back Peshmerga units, while Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) backs the Sinjar Protection Units.

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Libya’s biggest oil port was seized by an armed group, dealing a blow to the beleaguered country as it seeks to revive production of its most important commodity.

The Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB), a coalition of militias that is not allied to the United Nations-backed government in Tripoli, took control of the Sidra terminal on Friday afternoon. The facility had previously been under the control of eastern-based military commander Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.

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