Filipino UN peacekeepers in the Golan Heights who earlier had defied demands from Syrian rebels to surrender had figured in a clash Saturday morning in Syria, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said yesterday. He added in a text message to reporters that Filipino troops had been “extricated” from one of their two positions and that another group of Filipino soldiers “is now under attack.”

He was referring to two positions on the Golan Heights where more than 70 Filipino troops had previously been surrounded by Syrian rebels.

[Read more…]

Lesotho’s prime minister has fled the country, after a military coup was launched earlier today.

Prime minister Tom Thabane told the BBC World Service that has left the country, after receiving threats to his life.

[Read more…]

Kurdish Peshmerga security forces fighting militants from the al-Qaida inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). (AP)

Kurdish Peshmerga forces say they have retaken oilfields near Mosul in north Iraq from Islamic State (IS) militants.

The attack on the three Ain Zalah installations began on Thursday morning, they said, but the militants blew them all up as they retreated.

[Read more…]

A Ukrainian serviceman shoots during fighting with pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Ukrainian town of Ilovaysk August 26, 2014. Maks Levin/Reuters

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that Russian forces had been deployed in Ukrainian territory amid claims that around 15,000 Russian soldiers have been sent to the Donetsk region. Poroshenko cancelled a visit to Turkey and called an urgent meeting of the Ukrainian Defence and Security Council over what he called the “rapidly deteriorating situation” in Eastern Ukraine.

The 15,000 estimate was made by Russian organisation Soldier’s Mothers which establishes contact between military personnel on duty and their families.

[Read more…]

ISIS said Thursday that it has executed at least 250 Syrian soldiers at an air base in the northeastern city of Raqqa.

The group said on one of its official websites that it killed the soldiers Wednesday. It also claimed to have killed 600 government soldiers in the fight for the al Tabqa air base since Aug. 19.

[Read more…]

Smoke rises on the Israeli side of the border in a photo taken today.

Syrian rebel fighters, including members of the jihadist Al Nusra Front, Wednesday seized control of the Quneitra border crossing which separates Syria from the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least twenty members of the Syrian armed forces and its allied militias were killed in the clashes.

[Read more…]

At least 129 soldiers and fighters of the National Guard of Ukraine surrendered to the militia in the village of Starobeshevo, the Donetsk region.

“In the militia-controlled settlement of Starobeshevo, the Donetsk region, 129 Ukrainian servicemen and National Guard fighters voluntarily surrendered in the morning on August 27,” representatives of headquarters of the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk told RIA Novosti.

[Read more…]