Members of the biggest Muslim rebel group in the Philippines began to lay down their arms on Tuesday in a process policy makers hope will bring to an end more than four decades of violence in the country’s second-biggest island.

President Benigno Aquino and members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front attended a ceremony in Mindanao ahead of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. The turnover of weapons is part of a peace agreement signed in March 2014 by the Aquino government with the secessionist group.

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Yemeni officials and witnesses say heavy airstrikes by Saudi-led coalition warplanes pounded positions of Shiite rebels and allied forces, killing not only rebel fighters but at least 10 civilians in northern Yemen.

Explosions rocked the capital Sanaa, the southern city of Aden and the provinces of Lahj and Jouf early Friday morning, officials and witnesses said.

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Chad’s military announced it had carried out air strikes against Boko Haram bases in Nigeria in retaliation for twin suicide bombings in the Chadian capital N’Djamena this week that killed at least 38 people.

The air raids caused heavy human and material damage to six of the Islamist militants’ bases, the military said late on Wednesday (Thursday NZT), without providing further details.

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There were conflicting reports of casualties following a fierce clash between Taliban and Afghan security forces when rebels stormed police check posts in the Musa Qala district in southern Helmand province, provincial police chief said on Thursday.

Maj. Gen. Nabi Jan Malakhel told Pajhwok Afghan News that heavily-armed insurgents stormed police check posts in the Naway district on Wednesday night.

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Two suicide bombers and another blast targeted the headquarters of Yemen’s Shiite rebels in the capital, Sanaa, on Wednesday, killing at least four people and wounding some 60 others, officials said. Earlier Saudi-led airstrikes hit a convoy of civilian vehicles and killed at least 31 people, authorities said.

The Health Ministry said in a statement that the casualty figure from the Sanaa attacks on Wednesday night was “preliminary,” as Muslims around the world prepared for the start of the holy month of Ramadan. Ambulances rushed through the streets in northern and central parts of the capital where the offices of the rebels, known as Houthis, are located.

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