The Syrian troops on Saturday recaptured a key natural gas field after intense battles with the militant group calling itself the Islamic State (IS) in the eastern part of Syria’s central Homs province, the Syrian army’s general command said in a statement.

The Syrian army, backed by the pro-government National Defense Forces, succeeded on Saturday in taking back the al-Shaer gas field after a “precise and qualitative” operation, during which the government troops eliminated large numbers of armed ” terrorists,” affiliated with the IS, said the statement.

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At least 59 people died in clashes between the Libyan government forces and Islamist militants in Benghazi and Tripoli, Reuters reported on Sunday, citing local security and healthcare sources.

According to the agency, the clashes began in two cities almost simultaneously and continued through the entire night. Preliminary estimates show that at least 36 people were killed by militants in Benghazi with the majority of the victims being civilians. In Tripoli 23 people, including Egyptian workers, died when a house collapsed hit by a mortar round.

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IDF announces resumption of attacks on terror targets in Gaza from the sea, land and air, after rockets are fired from coastal enclave; rocket lands in open area of metropolitan Tel Aviv; Iron Dome intercepts several rockets.

Israel resumed its Gaza offensive on Sunday morning after Hamas rockets broke a humanitarian cease-fire that Israel had agreed to extend.

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More than 800 ethnic Palaung villagers in northern Shan State’s Namkham Township have fled their homes in recent days to avoid the growing number of clashes between the Burma Army and Palaung rebels, according to a local NGO.

De De Poe Jeing, secretary of the Ta’ang Women’s Organization, said more than 800 people had fled Mong Poe village and arrived at nearby Namkham town, located on the Burma-China border, on Monday.

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A Ukrainian security spokesman says government forces advanced to the outskirts of a key town in an effort to go after pro-Russian separatists in one of their main strongholds.

National security spokesman Andriy Lysenko said Ukrainian forces were outside Horlikva north of the main regional center of Donetsk.

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Fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) say they have overrun a large Syrian military base on the outskirts of the city of Raqqa.

The Islamist fighters have released images of captured soldiers being beheaded after the battle for the base.

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Israeli forces killed a leader of Islamic Jihad’s military wing and two of his sons early Friday with an airstrike on their home in the southern Gaza Strip, as the Palestinian death toll topped 800 in the battle’s 18th day. A 36-year-old reservist also fell in combat in Gaza’s north, the military said, bringing the number of Israeli soldiers killed over the past week to 33.

A statement from Islamic Jihad, which has been fighting Israel alongside the Islamist Hamas movement, said that Salah Abu Hassanein, 45 — a spokesman for its militia, Al-Quds Brigades — and his sons, aged 15 and 12, were killed in the entrance to their home in the southern city of Rafah.

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