Heavy fighting has erupted in northeastern Lebanon over the weekend between the major Islamist factions in the Syrian Civil War, ISIS and al-Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra, who fought on the outskirts of the town of Arsal, which is housing tens of thousands of refugees.

Reports from the area suggest at least nine ISIS and seven Nusra fighters were killed in the weekend fighting, and local Sheikh Mustafa Hujeiri, seen as close to Nusra, is said to be trying to broker some sort of local truce between the two sides to end the fighting.

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Al-Qaeda fighters have taken control of a town in southern Yemen on a major road linking two provincial capitals, a local official and tribal chiefs said today.

Militants swept unopposed into Azzan, in Shabwa province, before raising the al-Qaeda flag over public buildings, the sources said.

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At least 60 people were killed, including 25 Shi’ite fighters, and dozens wounded on Sunday by a car bomb and two suicide bombers in a district of Damascus where Syria’s holiest Shi’ite shrine is located, a monitor said.

Sunni fundamentalist Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, according to Amaq, a news agency that supports the group. It said two operations “hit the most important stronghold of Shi’ite militias in Damascus”.

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A survivor hidden in a tree says he watched Boko Haram extremists firebomb huts and heard the screams of children among people burned to death in the latest attack by Nigeria’s homegrown Islamic extremists.

Scores of charred corpses and bodies with bullet wounds littered the streets from Saturday night’s attack on Dalori village just 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram and the biggest city in the northeast, according to survivors and soldiers.

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Seventeen members of the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group have been killed in an operation by the Iraqi air force in the country’s beleaguered western province of Anbar.

A security source, requesting not to be named, said the Daesh terrorists were killed as Iraqi military aircraft launched precision strikes against a number of militant hideouts northeast of the city of Khan al-Baghdadi, situated about 180 kilometers (110 miles) northwest of the capital, Baghdad, on Saturday, Arabic-language al-Sumaria satellite television network reported.

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Three Maoist of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) were killed in two different encounters in Bastar region of Chhattisgarh on Saturday morning, the police said.

“Two encounters took place in Bastar today morning. Two woman Maoists were killed and their dead bodies were recovered after an encounter near Palamadagu village of Sukma district.

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Fighting raged across Taez province on Friday, a day after Yemeni pro-government soldiers and resistance fighters launched a major offensive to drive out tens of thousands of Houthi rebels and allied fighters.

Resistance leader Hamoud Al Mikhlafi, who is leading the offensive, told The National that the first aim of the campaign was to break the rebels’ siege on parts of Taez city, the provincial capital.

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