As pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine prepared to hold a referendum on whether to declare their independence on Sunday, acting President Oleksander Turchinov warned that a “yes” vote could mean self-destruction.

The vote will be held in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where pro-Russian separatists have occupied government buildings in a number of towns, and have taken complete control of the city Slaviansk. The referendum has been dismissed by Ukraine’s government and other Western countries as illegitimate.

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South Sudan’s president has reached a ceasefire agreement with a rebel leader, an African regional bloc said on Friday, after a vicious cycle of revenge killings drew international alarm.

The deal means “an immediate cessation of hostilities within 24 hours of the signing” and “unhindered humanitarian access” to all people affected by the months-long conflict, said a statement by the political bloc known as IGAD, which is mediating the conflict.

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The Afghan Taliban have announced that they will launch a “spring offensive” from May 12, with attacks across the country at a time when foreign troops were devising an exit strategy.

The announcement this year comes just weeks ahead of the presidential election runoff as no candidate secured 50 percent plus one vote in the April 5 polls. The second round is expected in mid-June.

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Iraqi forces launched an operation Friday to retake areas near the militant-held city of Fallujah in preparation for an eventual assault, a senior officer said, as violence killed 11 people.

Antigovernment fighters have held Fallujah, just a short drive from Baghdad, and shifting parts of Anbar provincial capital Ramadi, farther west, since early January.

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An ethnic Palaung rebel group claimed to have ambushed a Burma Army convoy in northern Shan State’s Kunlong Township on Wednesday, killing at least three soldiers and destroying two trucks.

“We fired seven RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades]. Two trucks were destroyed and burned. I only could see three bodies of soldiers fell out of the trucks. We do not know the exact number of deaths and injured,” said Mai Aie Kyaw, a spokesperson for the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA).

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Yemeni government forces captured al-Qaeda’s main stronghold in the southern part of the country on Tuesday after insurgents blew up the local government compound there and fled, the Defense Ministry said.

The mountainous al-Mahfad area of Abyan province, along with Azzan in the adjacent province of Shabwa, has been the militants’ main stronghold in Yemen since 2012. In that year, the Yemeni army, with U.S. help, drove the fighters from towns they had seized during a chaotic national uprising in 2011.

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The foreign-backed militants operating in Syria’s Old City of Homs began withdrawing from the area.

The militants are leaving the old city under an agreement reached on Sunday between the Syrian government and the militants.

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