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The leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, said his group had trained and funded fighters from Syria’s al-Nusra Front - which is blacklisted by the United States - since the early days of the two-year-old uprising.
He said in a statement posted on Islamist websites and seen by Reuters on Tuesday that the two groups would operate under the joint title of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
North Korea has completed preparations for a mid-range missile launch from its east coast, Seoul officials said Tuesday, as the country readies for what many suspect is another provocative act amid heightened tension on the Korean Peninsula.
A French force of 1,000 soldiers has begun a sweep of a river valley thought to be a logistics base for armed Islamists near the Malian city of Gao, an AFP journalist accompanying the mission said.
Operation Gustav, one of France’s largest actions since its intervention against insurgents in January, will involve dozens of tanks, helicopters, drones and aircraft, said General Bernard Barrera, commander of the French land forces in Mali.
An SSA-North soldier takes up position
More than 1,000 ethnic Shan villagers from Tangyan Township, Shan State, have fled from their homes due to atrocities by Burmese government forces, a human rights group said on Friday.
The Shan Human Rights Foundation said the influx of residents from 16 villages in the eastern state began two weeks ago due to the government army’s new operation against the Shan State Army-North (SSA-North), an ethnic Shan militia that signed a ceasefire agreement with the government in January 2012.
Syrian rebels said they overran an army garrison that defends the main southern border crossing with Jordan on Friday and vowed to press on to take control of the major transit route.
Fighters from the Free Syrian Army said they captured the Um al-Mayathen post on the main Damascus-Jordan highway in heavy fighting overnight that ended a siege that lasted more than a week. Dozens died in the clashes they said.
At least five Maoist rebels are dead following a gun battle with police in India’s western state of Maharashtra.
Officials say the insurgents opened fire on a police patrol in a forested region of the Gadchiroli district.
“We have recovered five of the Maoists’ bodies from the scene,” Gadchiroli deputy police chief RK Shinde said by phone on Thursday.
Battles in Damascus intensified Thursday, as the regime shelled suburbs surrounding the city, and fierce clashes between rebels and the army erupted in the outer suburbs, activists said.
By early afternoon 56 people had been killed across the country, including seven women and two children, and 12 in Damascus and suburbs, according to the Local Coordination Committees network.