More than 200 people have been killed in a brutal surprise offensive by Islamic State in Syria that involved multiple suicide bombings and simultaneous raids in which militants stormed villages and slaughtered civilians.

The attacks on Wednesday targeted the city of Sweida and nearby towns and villages in south-western Syria – areas that before the war were populated mostly by members of the Druze minority sect, and that are nominally under government control but have largely stayed out of the fighting that devastated much of the country over the last seven years.

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The Israeli military shot down a Syrian fighter jet after it entered Israeli airspace on Tuesday afternoon, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said, raising fears of further military escalation in the region.

The Russian-made Sukhoi jet entered two kilometers into Israeli airspace when two Patriot missiles were launched to intercept the aircraft, the IDF said. The missiles hit the jet once it had crossed back into Syrian airspace, the IDF said, adding that the military did not know what happened to the pilot of the aircraft.

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Malian troops killed 11 jihadists who had ambushed them in the centre of the country, in clashes that also left one soldier dead, the defence ministry said.

Armed Tuareg groups supporting the government also reported assailants executed more than 20 people on Friday in a village in the northeast.

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The death toll from a suicide attack near Kabul international airport has risen to 23, the health ministry said on Monday, with an AFP driver among the dead.

At least 107 others were wounded in on Saturday’s powerful explosion, which happened as scores of people were leaving the airport after welcoming home Afghan Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum from exile.

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Six members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have been killed in a battle with government forces backed by the UAE in south-east Yemen.

“The fighting flared up between our forces and a cell affiliated with al-Qaeda in Wadi Sur, in the mountainous chain that stretches between Al Musainya area and the district of Markha to the north of Shabwa,” Col Mohammed Al Bowhar, commander of the elite forces in Shabwa, told The National yesterday.

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