 | Wars in the World |
Daily News on Wars in the World and on New States
| FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK X FLIPBOARD TELEGRAM |
Iraqi officials say security forces have taken control of a government complex in Ramadi that has been a stronghold for Islamic State (IS) militants in the government’s push to retake the devastated city.
“By controlling the complex this means that they have been defeated in Ramadi,” Sabah al-Numani, a spokesman for the force leading the fight on the government side, was quoted by Reuters as saying on December 27. “The next step is to clear pockets that could exist here or there in the city.”
Fighters from the Islamic State group and a militia controlled by a prominent lawmaker have beheaded a total of eight men in tit-for-tat revenge killings in the eastern border province of Nangarhar, an Afghan official said on Sunday.
Four men from each side had been decapitated after being caught by the opposing side during battles on Saturday, Ghalib Mujahid, the governor of the Achin district, said.
Islamist fighters killed 10 Tuareg rebels in two attacks near northern Mali’s border with Algeria this week in a growing wave of violence, Tuareg officials said on Saturday.
Six fighters from the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, northern Mali’s largest Tuareg rebel group, were killed on Thursday when Islamist militants attacked their checkpoint in the town of Talahandak, the group said.
It added that Islamist fighters were also killed in the clashes, though it did not give further details.
A Philippine military spokeswoman says Christmas attacks by Muslim rebels against Christian communities in the country’s volatile south have left at least 14 people dead.
Regional military spokeswoman Capt. Joan Petinglay says the dead included nine Christian villagers gunned down by Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters insurgents and at least five rebels killed by government forces in clashes in the provinces of Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao and North Cotabato.
South Sudan’s armed opposition faction (SPLA-IO) has accused government forces of launching fresh attacks on its positions in west bank despite the arrival in Juba of the opposition advance team.
In a statement extended to Sudan Tribune on Friday, the official spokesperson of SPLA/IO Col. William Gatjiath Deng said their bases have been under attack by government forces during the past two days.