Sudanese government forces and rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) clashed today in South Darfur state for the first time since several months, the two parties said.

The fighting took place at Khor Taan, 50km east of South Darfur state capital, Nyala. None of the two belligerents provided the details of human causalities but JEM claimed capturing 13 vehicles.

JEM “captured 13 vehicles and destroyed many more. Three of JEM fighters were injured in the combat, none of them seriously,” said JEM military spokesperson Ali Alwafi.

The rebel group said clashes erupted when the government troops attacked one of their mobile units while the Sudanese police said the rebels ambushed a commercial convoy escorted by its forces.

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The Algerian government has announced it will arm residents of remote areas to help them fight Islamist militants.

Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said the decision was made by the defence minister but would be carried out by his ministry.

He said civilians in some areas had asked for weapons “to fight terrorism”.

A North African branch of al-Qaeda is active in Algeria and nearby countries, and has carried out a number of attacks and kidnappings recently.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk … orld-africa-11696035

Nato says its forces in Afghanistan have killed at least 19 Taliban fighters who tried to storm a combat outpost under cover of darkness.

The attack happened at a base in Paktika province, bordering Pakistan.

The militants are reported to have attacked from all directions, using rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Meanwhile, President Hamid Karzai has criticised the first joint operation by Russian and US agents to destroy drug laboratories in Afghanistan.

Mr Karzai said Thursday’s raid had taken place without his government’s permission and was a clear violation of Afghan sovereignty.

A Russian official said about 70 military personnel and counter-narcotics agents were involved, and that they had destroyed a “major hub” about 5km (three miles) from the Pakistani border, near Jalalabad.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk … -south-asia-11657981

Armenia and Azerbaijan can come to an agreement on the principles of Nagorno-Karabakh issue settlement before the OSCE summit scheduled for December, reported Russian President Dmitri Medvedev who was the mediator of the October 27 meeting of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“The issue of the settlement principles is yet to be solved to later become the basis of the peace treaty. Nevertheless, we have come a long way which gives a good ground for hope that if the sides work efficiently during this month, basic principles of settlement could be reconciled before the OSCE summit in Kazakhstan on December 1-2,” says Medvedev.

The main practical and political outcome of the Astrakhan meeting has become the agreement between the two presidents to exchange war prisoners.

“The parties have agreed on a joint statement, which is of humanitarian character but is a very important one. It is a special declaration providing for immediate exchange of war prisoners and bodies of those who died [in recent skirmishes on the line of contact] as confidence-building measures,” said Medvedev.

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http://www.armeniano … nt_meeting_astrakhan

The militant Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab paraded newly trained fighters in the capital, Mogadishu, on Thursday, the Somali radio station Shabelle reported.

“These forces are our reserve and they will break the enemy’s back,” said Sheikh Ali Mohamud Ali Dhere, a spokesman for al-Shabaab.

Top commanders of the group addressed the new fighters at the Maslah compound in northeast Mogadishu.

The spokesman said that the new unit is named after Sheikh Mustafa Abu Yazid, a member of al Qaeda killed in a suspected U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan this year.

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http://edition.cnn.c … militants/index.html

Some of the Somali regions that share a border with Ethiopia have been in a state of turmoil over the past few days. In the shifting patterns of this prolonged war in Somalia, the escalation of violence in the regions of Galguduud, Hiiran, Gedo and Bakool has illuminated some of the underlying geo-political dynamics that are at play in the volatile region of the Horn of Africa.

More than 400 Transitional Federal Government (TFG) soldiers, accompanied by up to 300 Ethiopian forces, raided the town of Baladweyn, Hiiran, in order to bring an end to the Islamists’ rule in the region; in Galguduud, hundreds of Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama (ASWJ) rebels attacked Cadaado, the region’s business hub which is governed by a tribal administration, with military equipment and reinforcements readily supplied by the Ethiopian government; in the border towns of Yeed and Ceel Berde, Bakool region, the Islamists are fending off the Ethiopian troops’ aggressive incursions; in the South-Western region of Gedo, TFG troops buttressed by the Ethiopian might and men wrestled the region’s capital, Beledxaawo, from the iron grip of the Islamists.

But while the Transitional Federal Government has its own reasons for driving out the Islamists from the region, what are the motives that underpin the Ethiopian involvement?

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http://somalilandpre … stop-islamists-18783

Russian troops pulled back from a small village of Perevi at the western part of administrative border of breakaway South Ossetian on Monday evening.

Georgia said the withdrawal was “a step made in the right direction.”

“The de-occupation of each village is of outmost importance for Georgia and especially for the population residing in those villages,” the Georgian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on October 18.

“However, it should be emphasized that the withdrawal of Russian occupational forces from Perevi is just a miniscule step in comparison with commitments envisaged by the ceasefire agreement of August 12 2008 which Russia still has to comply with,” it said.

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http://www.geotimes. … ?m=home&newsid=22940