IDF tanks in the Golan Heights earlier in the day. (Photo: Avihu Shapira)

In retaliation for rockets launched at the Israeli Golan, IDF says IAF warplanes attacked Syrian military artillery positions; ‘We will not tolerate any firing towards Israeli territory,’ defense minister says.

Israeli Air Force warplanes attacked Syrian military targets shortly after midnight on Wednesday, as air raid sirens blared in the northern Golan Heights towns of El Rom, Neve Ativ, and several Druze villages. The IDF said no rockets had landed in Israeli territory and the military was investigating why the alarms sounded.

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Clashes between the Kachin Independence Organization’s (KIO) armed wing and the Burmese military continued in Kachin state this week, even after the KIO handed over three police officers who had been detained near Hpakant.

Heavy fighting between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Burma Army broke out in Hpakant and Kamaing townships on 22nd January, said Major Tang San from the KIA’s Battalion 6.

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Iraqi government forces celebrate after they claimed they have gained complete control of the Diyala province, near the town of Muqdadiyah, on January 26, 2015 (AFP PHOTO / YOUNIS AL-BAYATI)

At the same time that the Iraqi army has announced the liberation of Diyala province in the east of the country from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the region’s local tribes accused some of the Shi’ite volunteer forces who helped liberate the province of targeting Sunnis there.

In a press conference held in Diyala province on Sunday, Hadi Al-Ameri, who leads the Badr Organization, the armed wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (a Shi’ite Islamist party) which is involved in the fight alongside Iraqi troops, told reporters all populated areas in the province had been “completely liberated” from the presence of the extremist group.

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Kurdish YPJ female fighters in Kobani, Syrian Kurdistan. Photo: PUK

Kurdish fighters have expelled jihadists from the Islamic State group IS from the border Kurdish town of Kobani in Syrian Kurdistan after more than four months of fighting, a monitor said Monday.

Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP that fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) had “expelled all Islamic State fighters from Kobani and have full control of the town.”

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More than 30 police commandos were killed in a clash with Moro rebels in the southern province of Maguindanao in the biggest single-day combat loss for Philippine forces in many years, officials said.

The commandos, who are members of the police Special Action Force (SAF), had entered the far-flung village of Tukanalipao in Mamasapano town at dawn looking for a top terror suspect, but had a “misencounter” with members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and other insurgents, Mayor Tahirudin Benzar Ampatuan of Mamasapano told The Associated Press by telephone.

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