Serbia’s prime minister said Friday the country’s leadership was close to demanding the deployment of their security troops to Kosovo, claiming lives of minority Serbs there were being threatened. The return of Belgrade’s troops to the former Serbian province could dramatically increase tensions in the Balkans.

Serbian officials claim a U.N. resolution that formally ended the country’s bloody crackdown against majority Kosovo Albanian separatists in 1999 allows for some 1,000 Serb troops to return to Kosovo. NATO bombed Serbia to end the war and push its troops out of Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008.

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M23 rebels accused a government coalition in Congo on Wednesday of targeted killings and breaching a cease-fire agreed to last month, jeopardizing prospects for peace in the country’s conflict-riddled east.

M23 alleges the coalition attacked its positions in North Kivu province and was killing civilians, destroying houses and slaughtering cows, Lawrence Kanyuka, the rebel group’s political spokesperson, said.

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The Islamic State group (ISIS) said on Wednesday that its leader Abu Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi has been killed in battle and announced a replacement, AFP reported.

A spokesman for the terror group said Hashimi, an Iraqi, was killed “in combat with enemies of God”, without elaborating on the date of his death or the circumstances. Speaking in an audio message, the spokesman identified the group’s new leader as Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi.

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Somali security forces have stormed a hotel in Mogadishu, ending an occupation by al-Shabaab militants after a nearly daylong battle in which at least nine people were killed.

Gunfire crackled from inside the building as the special forces fought the militants more than 12 hours after the Islamist group stormed the building in the centre of the city.

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The Colombian government and the left-wing National Liberation Army (ELN), the country’s largest remaining rebel group, launched new peace talks in neighbouring Venezuela aimed at ending nearly 60 years of conflict.

The push for the talks, which resumed on Monday after they were suspended in 2019, came from Colombia’s new first-ever left-wing President Gustavo Petro, who was a former member of the M-19 rebel movement.

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