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Residents walk through rubble in worn-torn Aleppo (Reuters)
Syria’s army advanced in east Aleppo Saturday in a devastating assault that has placed it in control of more than half the former rebel stronghold and sparked a civilian exodus.
Tens of thousands of civilians have fled eastern neighborhoods of the battered city since President Bashar al-Assad’s regime began its latest offensive in mid-November.
Clashes are continuing for the second day among heavily-armed militias in the Libyan capital Tripoli in what appears to be the worst outbreak of violence there in two years.
Witnesses on Friday say gun battles are rocking the southeastern Nasr Forest district and adjacent neighbourhoods between militias vying for power and control over the city.
About 400 internally displaced people (IDPs) have fled their homes in Namtu and Mongton townships and taken shelter in Namtu town, according to local sources, following the latest clashes between the Burma Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) in northern Shan State.
“Yesterday, 177 people arrived. They were from Nam Hai village in Mongton township,” said Nang San Hown, a lawmaker from the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) in Namtu Township.
Al-Shabaab terrorists are regrouping in Jedahaley, Somalia, and plan to attack the country, police have warned.
Inspector-General of Police Joseph Boinnet has also revealed that some of the attackers were hiding in small groups pretending to be herders around Hida and Dambala in Somalia while plotting to sneak into the country.
Iraqi forces, supported by local Sunni militia, have opened a new front against ISIS in the Hawija Plains, north of the group’s stronghold of Hawija, 58 km southwest of Kirkuk.
Iraqi forces have so far liberated two villages north of Hawija, Shayyal al Abali and Shayyal al Imam, reported Rudaw’s Nabard Hussein who is embedded with the advancing troops.
French jets based in Djibouti “struck and likely killed” senior al Qaeda operative Mokhtar Belmokhtar, known as the “one-eyed terrorist”, in a joint US-French operation, according to US officials cited by the Wall Street Journal.
The article recalled that previous reports of Belmokhtar’s death have been false, but said that this time the “caliber of the intelligence” indicated that the strike “likely was successful”.
Eleven members of the Islamist Maute group have been killed in clashes with government soldiers in Butig town in Lanao del Sur, the military said Sunday.
Col. Edgard Arevalo, public affairs chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), said five more members of the bandits group were wounded in the clashes, which started Saturday morning.