Muslim rebels belonging to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) signed a peace deal with the Philippine government on Thursday aimed at ending decades-long strife in impoverished regions of resource-rich Mindanao.

More than 1,000 guests from various sectors of society witnessed the signing of the five-page Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) by the panel members from the government and the MILF in Malacanang, a culmination of 17 years of hard negotiations, which even reached deadlock at some point.

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Somali National Army backed by the Ethiopian forces of the African Union have on Wednesday captured a key town in Central Somalia from the Islamist group al-Shabaab.

The Capturing of El bur of Galgadud region, which is about 350 kilometres northeast of the capital Mogadishu, came days after the joint troops battled the militants as they were on the way to the town, having departed from Dhusamareeb which is the head of the region.

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Hard-line Islamic rebels captured a small town in northwestern Syria near the Turkish border as part of their offensive in the rugged coastal region that is a bastion of support for President Bashar Assad, activists said Monday.

Fighters from an array of armed opposition groups seized the predominantly Armenian Christian town of Kassab on Sunday. The rebels, including militant from the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front, have also wrested control of a nearby border crossing to Turkey.

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Officials in the south-eastern province of Hadhramawt have confirmed on Monday that unknown armed men attacked a military-manned checkpoint east of the regional capital of Mukalla. Saba (news state agency) already reported that an estimated 20 men had already died in the violent clashes, a number which could substantially grow higher as the military will work to assess its losses and identify the dead.

“Twenty soldiers were killed in the armed attack on an army checkpoint near Reida, 135 kilometres east of the provincial capital Mukalla in the south,” Saba wrote.

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The government of Somaliland has acknowledged the incursion into its territory in Sanaag region of armed forces from the Somalia administrative region of Puntland.

“Puntland has deployed forces near its borders with Somaliland” informed Defence minister Ahmed Haji Abdilahi Adami during a press conference in his Hargeisa offices where he also revealed that the country’s armed forces are closely monitoring the situation.

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A Syrian warplane violated Turkey’s airspace and was shot down by F-16 pilots, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.

Speaking at a local election rally in Kocaeli, near Istanbul on Sunday, the Turkish leader told ruling AK Party supporters: “If you violate our airspace, then our response will be strong; you need to suffer the consequences.”

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Nato’s most senior military commander said on Sunday that Russia had amassed a large military force on Ukraine’s eastern border, and warned that Moldova’s separatist Trans-Dniester region could be the Kremlin’s next target.

General Philip Breedlove, Nato’s supreme allied commander, described the Russian force that began exercises 10 days ago as very, very sizeable and very, very ready.

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