Karen National Liberation Army soldiers stationed at an outpost near the Thai-Burmese border. (Photo: The Irrawaddy)

The commanders of units of different Karen rebel groups in southeastern Burma announced on Tuesday that they will begin military cooperation in order to deal with an increase in Burma Army operations in their areas in recent months.

Gen. Saw Lah Pwe, the head of the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA) and Gen. Baw Kyaw Heh, deputy commander-in-chief of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), who has support of KNLA brigades 2 and 5, agreed to work together. They are joined by two smaller rebel groups, the Karen National Defense Organization (KNDO) of Col. Nerdah Mya and the KNU/KNLA Peace Council of Col. Tiger.

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Turkish fighter jets have bombarded positions of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) following militant attacks on military outposts in southeastern Turkey, in a first since the start of the peace process.

The Turkish General Staff ordered the bombing of the PKK’s positions in the Daglica district the southeastern Hakkari province late Oct. 13, Hürriyet has learned. The bombarded targets had reportedly been involved in “assassination, armed incidents and attacks on security bases” after last week’s nationwide protests.

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Taliban insurgents ambushed a convoy of Afghan security forces in northern Afghanistan on Monday. Twenty-two soldiers and police men were killed, an official reported.

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Kurdish fighters have advanced against the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group in the southern rim of Syria’s northern city of Kobane, killing 13 IS militants, a monitoring group said Monday.

Intense battles have continued in the southern part of Kobane, also known as Ayn al-Arab, where Kurdish fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) unleashed a counter-offensive against IS positions in that part of the predominantly Kurdish town, stripping them of two sites the IS had managed to establish a foothold at, Xinhua reported citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

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An Iraqi senior government official claimed that up to 10,000 Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters are on the outskirts of Baghdad ready to attack the capital, the Telegraph newspaper reported on Saturday.

As Iraqi officials continue to urge the United States to deploy ground troops into the war-stricken country, a roadside bomb killed the police chief of Iraq’s battleground province of Anbar on Sunday, officials were quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying.

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Sources of a hospital in Libya have told reporters on Sunday that at least 21 people have been killed, and that more than 60 other people have been wounded during tribal clashes that had taken place towards the west of Libya’s capital city of Tripoli over the weekend.

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Thick smoke, debris and fire could be seen rising over the Syrian town of Kobane as fighting intensified between Syrian Kurds and ISIS

Kurdish fighters thwarted a bid by Islamic State group jihadists to advance into the centre of the battleground Syrian town of Kobane early this morning, according to a monitoring group.

The attack came after the IS militants overran Kurdish headquarters in the border town yesterday.

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